Disclaimer – I do not speak for the entire LGBTQ+ community through this piece. Instead, I draw on the experiences of myself and my friends to illustrate complicated relationships with Valentine’s Day.
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| ID: Cupid’s missed again … what a shock. Do your job please, I’m tired. |
Introduction: What’s the Deal with Valentine’s Day?
Every year, February 14th rolls around draped in pink and red, covered in heart-shaped gifts, and accompanied by a barrage of Instagram posts captioned “my forever Valentine <3”. Some people lean into it wholeheartedly – dressed up for overpriced dinners, arms wrapped around someone they love. Others roll their eyes and move on. And then, there are those of us for whom the holiday sits a little heavier – wrapped in old wounds, unspoken crushes, and the lingering question of whether love, as it is sold to us, was ever meant to include us at all.
Personally, I have never known quite how to feel about Valentine’s Day. I want to love it. I want to embrace the cheesiness, the ridiculousness of it all. Yet, when I walk past stores in town lined with glittery Hallmark cards – most of which are covered in Mr. & Mrs. quotes – I remember how little visibility this holiday (and the media surrounding it) ever allowed people like me. I mean, thinking about it now, every rom-com I grew up with was a boy-meets girl story. Valentine’s Day movie marathons meant watching 10 Things I Hate About You or The Notebook while quietly rewriting the love story in my head. Even in films that did have queer characters, love was so often secret or subplot at best – like in Carol, where even a happy ending felt delicate, like something that could be taken away momentarily. So every year, Valentine’s Day leaves me somewhere in between – confused by a desire to celebrate love and societal reminders of how LGBTQ+ people can be overlooked during the holiday.
For queer people like myself, love has never just been about romance. It’s the friendships that held us through our first heartbreaks. It’s the community that showed up when nobody else did. It’s longing, resistance, and reinvention, all at once. So, what do we do with a holiday that never felt like ours to begin with? Maybe, we can make it our own.
Love: Reclaiming the Terms and Conditions of Romance
Queer love, to some extent, has always been about carving out space where there previously wasn’t any. Historically, our love stories were whispered, hidden in letters, coded in poetry, and erased from history books. Just think of Sylvia Plath’s deep, complex relationship with Thelma Hulbert, a fellow artist, which some people suggest carried an unspoken romantic undercurrent, lost beneath the weight of heteronormative narratives. Now, in 2025, we have dating apps, legal protections in many places, and a growing number of accessible queer rom-coms on Netflix (some good, some…deeply questionable). However, even with this progress, mainstream Valentine’s Day still centres around a particular kind of love: monogamous, heterosexual, and deeply commercialised. So what do we do?
Some of us celebrate anyway, reclaiming our space at the table. Some of us create our own traditions – a quiet dinner with a partner where the real gift is getting to love each other without fear, or a Galentine’s Day celebration with friends full of Anti-Valentine Karaoke. Some of us say, screw it, and ignore the holiday altogether, because queer love is too big to be confined to one single day.
I like to remind myself that love is not just about grand gestures. It’s a partner remembering how I take my tea. It’s a friend saying, “Thinking of you”, or sending me a meme that only we could possibly find funny. It’s how my sister still sends me a “Happy Valentine’s” message even though we both pretend not to care. It’s the joy of going home to a dog who doesn’t care what day it is, just that I’m there. All of these things help to remind me that love exists in the smallest, softest moments too, unbound by societal norms.
Loneliness: Another Side of Valentine’s Day
For me, it would not be honest to talk about Valentine’s Day without talking about loneliness. This is because I know what it’s like to spend this day not celebrating, but just wandering along.
I know what it is like to sit in a coffee shop alone on February 14th, watching couples acting all lovey-dovey and exchanging gifts, and feeling like I’m on the outside of something I don’t quite understand. I know what it’s like to feel unseen, even when in a room full of people.
For queer people, like me, loneliness runs parallel with social experience. Maybe we spent years pretending to be something we weren’t, denying ourselves the crushes and teenage romances. Maybe we’ve loved someone who couldn’t love us back in the way we expected. Maybe we’ve lost people - family members who stopped communicating or relationships that never got the chance to go public.
Even now, with queer visibility at an all-time high, dating can feel impossible. Apps that are supposed to bring us together sometimes just act as a reminder of our differences. The world still assumes straightness first, and even in LGBTQ+ spaces, it’s easy to feel like you don’t quite belong.
So if Valentine’s Day feels heavy for you, I get it. If you’re tired of waiting for love to fit a certain image, I get it. If you’re still learning how to love yourself and let yourself be loved, I really, really get it.
Community: DIY Queer Valentine’s
Some of the most profound love stories I know are about chosen family. If we agree that Valentine’s Day has never really made space for us, maybe we need to make our own space instead. I believe that it is vital to rethink what exactly Valentine’s Day means to us and what we can do to ensure that it is a positive, restorative, and self-reclaiming experience.
This year, I’m thinking about DIY Queer Valentine’s – turning the holiday into something that feels good, whether you’re celebrating with a partner, with friends, or by yourself. Because love isn’t about fitting into expectations – it’s about creating something that feels right for you.
For the Solo Queers: Treat yourself the way you’d treat a date. Buy yourself flowers, write a love letter to your younger self, or maybe cook your favourite meal. Have an evening full of your favourite hobbies and favourite forms of self-expression. Or say no to romance and celebrate you – your resilience, your growth, and your ability to keep showing up for yourself.
For Friends & Chosen Family: Host a Galentine’s/Palentine’s night but make it queer. Write handmade cards for your friends – the more cheesy and dramatic, the better. Throw an “Exes Roast” where everyone tells their worst dating stories (or, if you’re feeling sentimental, a “Queer Crush Confession” circle where you basically just gas each other up). Make it a Queer Dinner Party where everyone dresses as their favourite queer icon.
For Partners (or Situationships): Who says Valentine’s has to be a candlelit dinner? Take your date to a sapphic poetry reading, a queer film screening, or a bookstore where you pick out books for each other. Make a playlist of songs that remind you of them. If you both hate Valentine’s Day, turn it into a tradition – make it a game night with ridiculous prizes or cook the most unromantic meal possible (instant noodles and chicken nuggets, anyone?). The possibilities are endless.
However you spend it, the point is this: Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be about what we are missing. It can be about what we already have – our friends, our communities, and the ways we keep choosing each other and ourselves.
Conclusion: Love is Ours to Define
Queer people have always had to fight for love – to name it, to protect it, to hold onto it despite everything.
So if today feels lonely, I hope you know that love is still yours. Maybe it’s the friend who texts you out of nowhere to check in. Maybe it’s the book you re-read because it makes you feel understood. Maybe it’s the small, quiet ways you choose yourself, even when it’s hard.
And if you are in love, I hope it’s a love that expands, that affirms, and that makes you feel more at home within yourself.
This Valentine’s Day let’s stop asking if we fit into the holiday and start making it fit us. Because queer love has never been small. And neither are we.
By Kadi (she/her)