Blog #313: My Views on Valentine’s Day and Romance as a Neurodiverse Individual
- Jeffrey Snyder
- Feb 13, 2023
- 2 min read
With Valentine’s Day coming up this Tuesday, I wanted to share my thoughts on the holiday itself and how I view the romance that is often paired with it.
…
To put it simply, I was never really a big fan of Valentine’s Day to begin with. Just the idea of seeing people going goo-goo and ga-ga over one another kind of gives me a sense of awkwardness, especially in recent years when I tried my hand at dating and had romantic crushes.
Going through Valentine’s Day can often be painful for those who don’t have a significant other in their lives, but the truth of the matter is that you don’t have to be in a romance for Valentine’s Day. You can be in a platonic relationship and it’s just as good. That’s how I have approached these kinds of situations, viewing people that I work with in the autism/neurodiversity community as brothers and sisters. That to me is enough and I don’t need to have to send out cards or other Valentine’s Day knick knacks.
…
But if you are someone who doesn’t care for romance or Valentine’s Day, you might have others around you who feel like you should have romance in your life when you are otherwise perfectly happy the way you are.
The truth of the matter is that you need to understand that romance has to develop naturally and sometimes we put too much pressure on others either to fall in love with another individual and it doesn’t matter if the person is male or female.
In Season 2 of “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic,” there was an episode that talked about this sort of issue called “Hearts and Hooves Day.” In it, the Cutie Mark Crusaders (Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle) tried to hook up their teacher, Cheerilee, with Apple Bloom’s brother Big MacIntosh by putting a love spell on them that caused to go awkward on one another.
The episode teaches the viewer a really important lesson about the importance of respecting the feelings of a man and woman who just want to remain platonic and not take their relationship to the next level. I’ve unfortunately been in those situations when it came to either having awkward crushes or having natural feelings for someone who did not have those feelings in return.
I will confess that writing this blog was kind of awkward in itself as I had to relieve those awkward moments again. But, I just want to share my story with you especially now that Valentine’s Day 2023 is here.
…
Catch you all later!!
Comments