Singles Awareness Day: Imaginative Idea or Nonsense Notion?

By Melody Chi on February 14, 2015

A while ago I wrote an article about SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, but now I’m going to tell you about a different type of SAD. This time, it’s Singles Awareness Day!

My friend Nolan Emery jokes that we don’t need a Singles Awareness Day because “everyone is aware that someone is single based on the amount of pics of their pet that they post [on Facebook].”

However, as much as he good-naturedly makes fun of it and the people it proposes to highlight, having a holiday that celebrates romantic independence has been an idea that’s generated a good amount of interest and support over the years.

University of California Davis alumnus Rasheed Bustamam is an example of one who shows such backing. He states that he thinks “there should be a day where single people can get together and meet.” Clearly, Singles Awareness Day has come to be thought of as a holiday that not only identifies romantically unattached people, but also celebrates them.

University of California Irvine alumnus Michael Palaroan expresses a similar sentiment. He argues that “lots of people get together for Valentine’s Day, so Singles Awareness Day gives people who aren’t couples an opportunity to hang out.”

Image via Angsbacka on Flickr

There is obviously a camp of people who believe Singles Awareness Day could both be an enjoyable holiday and one that is easily put into action. After all, what’s easier than just bringing together a few single people to hang out and celebrate their, well, singleness?

It could be like Thanksgiving, just without all the food required.

In all seriousness though, I think this focus on simultaneously celebrating romantic independence and single-person togetherness is important.

As someone who chooses to be romantically unattached because I like the freedom and the whole situation better overall, I feel that I’m constantly bombarded with media that tells me I should want to be in a relationship for various reasons. Having a holiday that emphasizes that there are others who choose to remain romantically unattached might make me and others feel a little more accepted by the mainstream.

Image via Google.com

On the other hand, like University of San Francisco law student Stephen Zendejas argues, it sometimes seems that “it’d just be easier to have a Valentine’s Day that included other types of relationships” than establish a whole other holiday just for singles.

In fact, Modesto Kaplan College student Elizabeth Holtz says it best: “Every day is Single Awareness Day. What we really should do is expand Valentine’s Day to encompass all kinds of love, from friends to siblings to romantic. Then nobody feels alone.”

And really, how can you argue with that logic? As much as I just raved about the importance of recognizing singles earlier in this article, I must admit that makes a whole lot of sense. Simply expanding Valentine’s Day so it’s not so narrowly focused on normative ideas of domestic bliss appears to be a very cut and dry solution to the problem.

Image via Google.com

However, to again play devil’s advocate for the single side, although the “acronym seems kind of depressing,” Zendejas asserts that having a separate Singles Awareness Day could still be beneficial from a commercial standpoint. Perhaps businesses could “sell pints of ice cream and Netflix subscriptions,” he jokes. The trouble, he pinpoints, would be to ensure that the holiday gets popular enough in the first place for such commercial sponsorship.

Also, in addition to a commercial purpose, a Singles Awareness Day could be put to a more serious use than Valentine’s Day seems capable of. Instead of having the holiday be for anyone and everyone who is single, Zendejas suggests that it could focus on “widows or people with significant others who are overseas.”

In this case, it does seem to be more practical to just begin a new holiday than try to reinvent Valentine’s Day, which is saturated both in a history of shallow commercialism and a hyperactive focus on apparent happiness rather than seriousness.

Then again, it seems like it would be very difficult to actually implement a new holiday. After all, according to UsPolitics.about.com, the most recent federally recognized holiday to be added is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which was first carried out in 1986.

So, perhaps just to get the ball rolling, we could first expand Valentine’s Day (which, in my opinion, would only be a good thing anyway) and then branch out into executing an independent Singles Awareness Day once that gained a little momentum? Seems a little complicated …

Thus, the conclusion about Singles Awareness Day appears torn. Some say having a holiday separate from Valentine’s Day is exactly what romantically unattached people need to socialize, while others argue that Valentine’s Day should simply be altered to include others besides romantic couples.

So, the most important question is: what do you think?

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