With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, it’s expected that many people have a plan for the special occasion, so when 100 students on UB’s North Campus were asked what they were doing for Valentine’s day, it’s not surprising that quite a few people were doing something romantic. Whether it was something as simple as watching a movie or asking someone to go on a date, many UB students had interesting responses to the question: “What do you plan to do this Valentine’s day?”
Despite being known for evening dinners, walks on the beach and other romantic events, most respondents answered with no plans for the holiday. While it may seem surprising that a whopping 47% said they weren’t doing anything special, various sources such as Pew Research Center have shown that 41% of adults aged 18-29 are single, so it’d be fairly common for people to not have relationship based plans.
The statistic seems understatement, as only 11% of respondents had plans relating to love, with 2% planning on confessing their love to someone, and 9% planning on spending time with a significant other. Despite the low percentage of love-based plans, people still had various other ways to spend the day.
The second most common response was spending time with friends, with a total of 23% of respondents saying they had plans relating to friendship. Of these plans, a number of people planned for ‘Galentine’s Day.’ This event was made to celebrate female friendship, and is usually celebrated the day before Valentine’s Day.
Similarly, many people simply plan on spending time with friends, with some helping friends with relationship issues. Despite the fact that Valentine’s day is usually a day for romantic love, many people see it as a day to show people close to you how much you care for them.
There were some plans that didn’t quite fall into any of the other categories: 4% of the respondents unfortunately had to work, and 3% of respondents planned to travel to their homes. Of course, there are plans that were too various, so they were simply categorized as other plans, including but not limited to: badminton, laser tag, Legos, going to a concert, getting “plastered” or giving out chocolate.
These are, of course, generalizations of UB’s North Campus, as this survey had about one third of the survey’s respondents come from Ellicott, Governors and the Student Union. As such, some interesting statistics are shown based on the locations surveyed. Ellicott had the highest percentage of people with no plans, with 60% of respondents falling into that category. The Student Union was the most even with its responses, with about 29% of people doing something friend related, and about 32% having no specific plans.
Overall, most Valentine’s Day plans are centered around being single, despite the holiday’s reputation of love. It seems that the meaning of Valentine’s Day has shifted from loving others romantically to simply appreciating the friends you have, and appreciating yourself. So if you, like many of the people surveyed, don’t have a Valentine’s this year, don’t fret, you're not alone in being alone.
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