No wonder loneliness is an epidemic now, and the loneliness of the 21st century isn’t like the loneliness of the 20th. There are many reasons to hate Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram: its predatory business model, its role in spreading false election information and false vaccine information, its exacerbation of political polarization, its sucking up the details of our personal lives and turning them into a commodity. To send a flower anonymously, you could pay extra for “insurance.” The popular kids walked around all day with great bouquets of carnations in their arms, a visible reminder of their social currency in that time of life when social currency is everything.Īnd now Facebook and Instagram - and probably TikTok, though I’ll be damned if I’ll add yet another possibility to my time-wasting options, so I can’t say for sure about TikTok - has turned the entire 21st century into high school, and once again the popular kids are holding out their bouquets and exclaiming, “Smell these aren’t they divine?” A red carnation meant love, white meant friendship, another color, maybe pink, meant someone wanted to be more than a friend. When I was in high school the student government raised money by selling color-coded carnations for Valentine’s Day. People have always been hurt, and people have always been lonely, and Valentine’s Day has always exacerbated those feelings. Filled with better chocolate.ĭeath isn’t something we talk about much on Valentine’s Day. Or they’re perfectly happy in their own relationships, but everyone else’s relationships suddenly look happier somehow.
They’re already lonely, and along comes Valentine’s Day to rub their noses in it. Thing is, it makes a lot of people feel awful. How can it hurt to tell a long-burnished love story one more time, or share a photo of the Valentine roses from a new sweetheart? Public discourse is so troubled these days, so beset by fury and despair, that surely there’s no harm in sharing a little joy. There are worse crimes than loving your partner and writing about it. Such stories can be incredibly sweet, but their cumulative effect is … not. NASHVILLE - By now, whatever time of day you read this essay, your Facebook and Instagram feeds are most likely filled with hothouse flowers and lovely hand-dipped chocolates and stories of the funny way two people met, how lucky they are to have found each other, how grateful they feel, on this day of love especially, to be moving through the world together.