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Holly Bourne
Holly Bourne: from the age of 13 to about 23 I never, ever, got a card from someone who wasn’t my dad writing with his left hand. Photograph: PR
Holly Bourne: from the age of 13 to about 23 I never, ever, got a card from someone who wasn’t my dad writing with his left hand. Photograph: PR

Why you should spend Valentine’s day with your friends

This article is more than 8 years old

Teen author Holly Bourne shares her painful and pathetic memories of Valentine’s day – and explains why she decided to reclaim it

Read the first chapter of How Hard Can Love Be here

Valentine’s Day is up there on my why-are-you-doing-this-to-me-please? list, alongside PE lessons and tax returns. On reflection, I’ve never really had a good one. Just as the Enforced Fun of New Year’s Eve is likely to end up with you crying on the stairs, the Enforced Love of V Day is likely to end up with you… well… probably crying on the stairs.

When I reflect on my pathetic memories of Valentine’s day, a few key ones jump out at me.

  • The one where I got conjunctivitis so disgustingly I was housebound for three days. I scared the postman, lurking out the window with my puss-glued-together eye, waiting to see if somehow, despite all my eyeball snot, someone had seen through that and still sent me a card. Note: Reader, they didn’t.
  • The one where a very quiet boy from school gave me a Valentine’s day card in front of everyone. He couldn’t spell too good, so the handmade card read: “You are the sweatiest girl I know” rather than the “sweetest”. I laughed in his face because everyone was watching and taking the piss, and spraying deodorant on me. I felt wretchedly guilty about this for years, until, in my early 20s, I bumped into him in a nightclub. He pulled me over, told me I was a horrid person that ruined secondary school, and then RIPPED OPEN HIS SHIRT to reveal a teenage-mutant-ninja-turtle style six-pack and yelled in my face, “Well, it’s too late to get any of THIS” while stroking his abs.
  • The one where my friend found out she’d been cheated on, so we went up to the common to burn all his paraphernalia - love letters, diary entries about him etc. But, just as the fire lit, a massive gust of wind blew the whole thing away and we had to wander the common like Heathcliff and Cathy, plucking diary entries out of trees and puddles like a really naff version of How To Make An American Quilt.
  • The one where - after watching The Craft too many times - I cast a love spell on the most gorgeous guy in school over a bunsen burner. Then he was off sick for two weeks and I convinced myself I’d got the spell wrong somehow and had a breakdown about “the force of my powers”
  • The one year where I actually had a boyfriend, but our date was cancelled as he had to interview a man who’d shaved “I love you Sharon” into the back of his head. (he was a local reporter at the time).
  • Every Valentine’s aged 13 to about 23 where I never, ever, got a card from someone who wasn’t my dad writing with his left hand.

But there was one Valentine’s Day that changed my life - 2003 to be precise. My friend had just got dumped (the same one as above incidentally). So me and another close friend took her to get her nose pierced (standard) and had a girlie sleepover. We decided to celebrate our single status, rather than mope about it. We declared ourselves “spinsters” and even made our own Spinster Club, with membership cards and everything. We reclaimed the meaning of the word - making it mean “strong” and “independent” and celebrating female friendship. We danced to Feeder and baked brownies and laughed so hard my friend’s new nose stud fell out. And, it was, without a doubt, the best Valentine’s I’ve ever had.

A decade later, I came back to that night - the fun it was, how strong I felt - and decided to write about it. So I started a trilogy of books about a group of girls who start their own Spinster Club. A trilogy about feminism, a trilogy about the importance of friendship, and a trilogy about calling out the things that are expected of us as girls. Valentine’s day being one of them. So - whether you’re single or coupled-up this February 14th, heartbroken or gooey-eyed - know that a single day doesn’t define you and your ability to love and be loved. And also, it’s likely there’s already a lot of people already who love you - your friends.

How Hard Can Love Be? by Holly Bourne - the follow up to Am I Normal Yet? - is out now.

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