Be My Malentine

In a time before the boyfriend went extinct, being a single woman on Valentine’s Day meant Cupid’s arrow pierced your heart, and not in a happily-ever-after way. No red roses, no chocolates, no plushies or personalised mugs on Feb 14 marked you as unchosen, a rank no one wanted.

As a survival strategy, we adapted, in the way women have always known how. We raised our Cosmopolitans, sang along to Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive, and unsurprisingly, we did. Long before Galentine Day’s became a marketable concept, women were claiming ownership of our singledom. We chose each other, and in doing so, pushed back against the patriarchal math that equated having a significant other with having self-worth.

Men, on the other hand, were never boxed in or labelled incomplete for being single. But neither were they taught to cultivate intimacy with one another. To build alliances (unless they were of a professional nature), or revel in the company of other men—the exception being a sports game and even then, it’s a screen they’re bonding with.

Which is why they’re at something of a crisis point now.

Men have struck claim to loneliness, now at “epidemic” level. You can debate the gendering of it, but the fact remains: many men struggle to build friendships that are emotionally open and sustained beyond convenience.

I see it everywhere.

The other day, I walked into a room to speak to A, who was playing video games. Mid-conversation, I realised we weren’t alone. On his desk, propped against a water bottle, his phone held a FaceTime call. His friend N was also playing video games, a reassuring presence minus conversation, or even eye contact.

“Why don’t you meet for coffee or a beer?” I suggested.

Friend-in-phone raised his mug toward me.

Ah. So they are, I thought.

A, a 50-something married professional, has a self-contained world, scaffolded by his significant other. What happens if that scaffolding comes down, I wondered? When the emotional connection and social glue, outsourced to his woman, comes undone?

We’re finding out as more and more women choose singledom over settling. Left to fend for themselves, men are increasingly untethered.

Which is why this Feb 14, I’m proposing a rebrand: let’s celebrate Malentine’s Day. Get together and bond over beers, Don Draper–style Old Fashioneds and Hotel California. Let your hair (if you still have it) down. Buy yourself a Ferrari. Or a PS5. Mark the day with your fellow men. After all, coming together in the name of love feels like a better use of time than morphing into an incel and disappearing into the internet’s darker corners.

I know it works. During my Master’s, two girlfriends, a guy friend and I decided to spend Valentine's together. We dressed up, exchanged gifts (I still have that inscribed book of Walt Whitman poems) and he brought us each a single red rose. We lunched, walked down Marine Drive, took pictures. It was simple, joyful and still makes me smile three decades later. 

Connections are already fraught in a world where most of us exist largely online. But for men, this is a particularly challenging moment. The idea of solidarity seems alien, and part of the blame can be laid at the doorstep of Marcus Aurelius. Stoicism, or the version of it pitched to men, prizes endurance, restraint, self-containment. Feel less, need less and speak less, and over time, that posture has calcified into a personality. But “strong” and “silent” only work within a complementary script: when women are warm and nurturing. What happens when the tables turn, and partnership becomes optional? 

“Would you and A want to go out to celebrate Malentine’s Day,” I asked N, over chat.

“What? 😀” he typed.

“Like Galentine’s Day. Women who wanted to celebrate but didn’t have a partner, so they got together. Now the shoe’s on the other foot.”

Pause.

!!!

Elsewhere, it’s already happening, even if by accident. A colleague recently mentioned attending a singles’ event where, as the evening unfolded, it became clear no women were coming. Instead of bashfully slinking away, the men stayed. They ordered drinks and dinner, played beer pong, and spent the night in one another’s company. An evening that began with romantic expectation ended in camaraderie.

Women reclaimed the day because we had to. Perhaps now it’s time to hand it over, to let men celebrate themselves in one another’s company. Because the truth is: