Happy Neuroqueer Valentines Day

Tradition is boring so let’s have some fun with it

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Valentines Day has hit my part of the southern hemisphere and I’m still working out this year’s strategy.

Avoidance is my reflex response to this custom that represents so much of what irks me. It’s a celebration of neuronormative and heterenormative compliance all bundled up in a pretty capitalist ribbon.

So what if as a neurodivergent queer person I choose to reclaim and subvert this day for my own imperatives? I’ve already made a pretty good start just by being at home alone, sitting at my desk looking out at the rain.

True to my autistic proclivities, I’m picturing the list below set out as a flowchart, a streamlined decision-making tree if you will. Perhaps laminated.

You don’t have to be in a couple

Valentines Day is a nasty little reminder from society that if you are not in a couple you are worth less as a person. It’s an occasion for dispensing scraps of hope to the unattached, whether or not they are in need of it.

Some of us are happily embracing solitude as it provides more room for love than the shitty relationship we escaped because it made us feel lonelier than we ever thought possible.