Queer Valentine’s: A Queer Queen’s experience

A self-proclaimed Queer Queen enlightens us on her past few Valentine’s days…

Here are entries of her queer and fabulous Valentines Days. It all got better after she came out:

Valentine’s Day 2009

My first “real” Valentine’s Day. I had a boyfriend a year older than me and thought I was cool and in control. His birthday was on Valentine’s Day; this must have been a great day for him. All I really remember is feeling nervous at the thought of having to kiss him and not understanding why I felt like that – kissing boys is totally normal, right?

Valentine’s Day 2011

For this Valentine’s Day I sent an eco-friendly wooden postcard to the boy I was dating. I thought it was cool and didn’t think about the practicalities of it at all; he had to go and pick it up from the post office and pay extra postage because apparently you can’t just put a stamp on some wood and post it. I was mortified.

Valentine’s Day 2012

I was pretty depressed this year. Dated 14 Feb in the journal I used to track my dreams and thoughts is the sentence “basically, I do not believe that human minds are capable of anything great”. A romantic Valentine’s sentiment if I’ve ever heard one!

Valentine’s Day 2013

One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2013 was to “be a better girlfriend”. This resolution was broken almost immediately and in spectacular style when I fell in love with a girl and broke up with my boyfriend so that I could be fully in (unrequited) love with her. Around Valentine’s I saw her perform in a play and wrote in my journal “she has a kind of strange new beauty about her… do I normally feel like this about female friends? No. She’s different”. This was the year I realised I was gay.

Valentine’s Day 2014

This was the year I received my first Valentine’s card from a woman; it was my best friend Helen who lived in the room next door when I was at boarding school. The “card” was actually two post-it notes. One said “Happy capitalist construct day. Long live the patriarchy!” and the other said “U r a twat”. The second was written inside a large heart, drawn in pink highlighter which made it seem nicer.

Valentine’s Day 2015

My first real Valentine’s Day. I was finally in a relationship with someone I wanted. That person was (is, and we’re coming up to a second Valentine’s Day) a woman – but I had reached a stage where I didn’t let this matter. We went to Paint-it-Yourself Pottery and tried to create heartfelt pieces of art for each other and it was as if we had to make our first queer Valentine’s Day extra-extra queer. I remember watching her ruffling her newly short hair in the mirror and feeling so pleased that she was happy with herself.
This was the Valentine’s Day that taught me the difference between loving and being loved. All the boys I had dated had loved me and I thought this was what a relationship was about; it never occurred to me to ask if I loved them or was attracted to them or even liked them as people. Valentine’s Day with Ellie was unique in my experience: we ate pancakes in bed, she gave me a card she designed when she was nine, we did impressions of seals dancing to Greensleeves and we were happy.

Read more similar posts: https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/queer-valentines

More articles on V-day? click here: https://theboar.org/2016/02/single-and-fabulous/