Relationships are messy and painful, but they can also be joyous, exciting and give you butterflies in your stomach. Maybe I got my stomach pumped at some point without my knowledge, because I’m just tired of Valentine’s Day. If you need a day during the year to remind yourself and others that you love your partner, you have even bigger issues with love than I do.

Valentine’s Day, otherwise known as Saint Valentine’s Day, V-Day, The Big V, or I’m-So-Deprived-of-Affection-and-Love-That-I-Must-Harp-About-Others-Being-Happy Day, is celebrated every February 14 as a yearly reminder that relationships are…well, they’re a thing. They exist. People often love others. But do we need a day for it? Not really. That’s what anniversaries are for.

I’m not trying to tell you not to be happy on Valentine’s Day. Get with your honey, get him/her/they/me a gift, and do whatever it is people do on Valentine’s Day. I’m not gonna tell you your feelings are wrong or invalid, because they aren’t. However, we don’t need to dedicate a day on the calendar to it.

The worst part of Valentine’s Day isn’t having to find a gift for some random person you have the hots for; the problem is getting the attention of a person in the first place.

As someone who’s spent a whopping ten or more years as a loner on Valentine’s Day, let me tell you: it’s the worst. Some people say it isn’t that bad, but we have a name for those sorts of people: liars. There’s nothing fun about spending a holiday alone, but it is even less fun when there are reminders of said loneliness pouring out of every department store and every form of social media.

Valentine’s Day is the Crash of holidays. Crash was the 2004 Oscar-winning film about racism in society. It managed to win against Brokeback Mountain and is often referred to as the most poorly voted victory in movie history. The director even has stated that their film was not worthy of best picture. It provides nothing new or interesting to discuss, it is just a blatant statement of the faults in our society. Valentine’s Day is a lot like that: nothing new is provided to the world. There’s no new message provided, it’s only there if you already have what’s being celebrated: love.

Christmas is about gratitude and time with family. You’re lonely? Reach out to your family. Thanksgiving? Give thanks. Valentine’s Day? Be thankful you’re in love and hope that you can hang on for one more year. You don’t want to be the loser alone on Valentine’s Day. No cheesy puns on cards or chocolate can help take away the blatant lack of necessity. Can’t we celebrate a different emotion? Something more important like…I don’t know. All of the other good emotions are taken. Love is in every other holiday, it doesn’t need a day for itself. That’s what every other day of the year is and why you’re supposed to remember anniversaries.

Simply put: forget Valentine’s Day. Don’t love others because a day on the calendar tells you to. Love for the sake of love. The exception to that rule is anniversaries. Love more on anniversaries. If you don’t, you’ll end up like me: whining about being alone on Valentine’s Day.