Valentine's Day is coming up, and for all of us on Facebook, we know what that means: everyone and their brother is getting engaged.
While I'm super glad that all of these people I know, from people I've known since high school to recent college sorority sisters, are at such an exciting point in their relationships and lives, I can't help but groan and stay off of social media for the surrounding days around Valentine's Day.
Valentine's Day, Christmas, and New Year's Eve/Day have gotten the bad reputation when it comes to stereotyped engagement dates. I can't even begin to imagine just how many couples' relationships have their anniversary as one of those.
It's honestly just such a cliché. Personally, I hate clichés. An engagement is something that's a big deal, and the idea of competing with a holiday for celebration just rubs me the wrong way. Your engagement should be a day that you make your own, one that you make special, not the "most romantic day of the year." Your engagement should make any day the most romantic day of the year.
The concept of waking up on a random day, like September 23, and making it different from any regular day through celebrating my partner just seems like the dream. It makes that day even more unique and special to me.
Now, I get it, there are over 7.6 billion people in the world, no day is truly "unique" because of the billions of other engagements of other couples that inevitably share the same date as you might, but that's completely different from Christmas or Valentine's Day.
Don't do yourself a disservice by trying to fight a holiday for acknowledgment and honor. Make that random third Tuesday in June your special day, not the most overdone engagement days of the year. Keep your relationship above the stereotypes.