Gals and Vals

Who’s doing what with who this Valentine’s Day.

As Valentine’s Day is around the corner, we spend our days making plans with galentines and stopping by Sugarfina to get our gummy hearts.  Knowing this is not what Valentine’s Day looks like for everyone, we take a moment to roam the singular hall of New Roads to see what the senior class (and one junior!) are up to on their last Valentine’s Day as high schoolers.

The Couple: Paige Homer + Malachi Edmunds-Warby

The Origin Story:

Paige: “We were hanging out with friends in Westwood. All of us, as friends, put our arms around each other for a minute. I don’t know what we were doing. I kept texting him over the next three weeks like “hey! you know, I actually really liked that, if you want…we can still do that, as friends. And then we weren’t just friends.”

The Hallmark Holiday:

Paige: “We aren’t doing too much, we’ll give each other gifts. He’s going to make me a scarf and I have a surprise gift that I can’t talk about just yet.” 

The Couple: Zaraya Jordan + Ezra Frain

The Origin Story:

Zaraya: “We met at New Roads! I was in eleventh grade and he was in tenth grade, it was last year. He was playing with a soccer ball [in the hallway] and when I joined in, I realized I hadn’t met him yet. I said, ‘Hi, I’m Zaraya’ and he said, ‘Oh! I’m Ezra, nice to meet you.’

I said: ‘You can call me Z, it’s a lot easier.’ He said: ‘No, of course I’ll call you by your actual name.’ It was very sweet because no-one ever said that. We started saying hi to each other, then one day in March he texted me. We started texting, then we started dating!”

The Hallmark Holiday:

Zaraya: “We don’t really have plans”

Ezra: “Yeah, we don’t really have plans”

Zaraya: “[But] we don’t do budgets, we go all out!”

The Couple: Katie Contreras + Dylan Nilsson

The Origin Story:

Dylan: “I really liked her for a long time and we were very good friends and she kinda started having a crush on me. I didn’t really know whether I had a crush on her but then I figured myself out and we got together for like two months and then broke up because she wasn’t ready.”

Katie: “Neither were you”

Dylan: “Yea but… we were broken up for like a month and then I started buying her a bunch of Coffee Bean matcha lattes and that won her back. Then we got back together.”

The Hallmark Holiday:

Katie: “Well, I jokingly told him that even though we’re in a relationship he needed to ask me to be his Valentine…Yesterday we hung out and I got to his house, he had a little setup where he got me a shirt the other day and then he got me chocolate, asked me to be his Valentine — it was very sweet.”

Looking around our campus, we realized that the majority of people are non-committed individuals who also deserve recognition at this time of year. We talked to some of the soloists in our community to get the insight on everything Valentine’s Day from their perspective.

The Soloist: Nasir Young

The Attitude:

“I see Valentine’s Day in a positive light, it’s a time to celebrate love and connections.”

The Plans:

“I have no plans.”

The Rationale:

“You know, after a while you don’t care anymore, so it’s whatever.”

The Soloist: Penelope Smuckler

(Artist’s rendition)

The Attitude:

“I personally think it’s an overrated holiday because it’s making people think, ‘Oh, you need to show your partner or your friends a lot of love on one day instead of making it normal to give whoever you’re with or your friends love everyday. So I think it’s like, ‘this is the one day I need to show all of my love and every other day is normal.’ You should be showing love on all days.”

The Plans:

“I don’t have any as of now, but I’m probably going to hang out with my friends!”

The Rationale:

“Well…I don’t honestly care about valentines day, It’s just kind of a normal day for me. At the moment, I want to be single so I don’t really feel like I would want to be celebrating with anyone I was dating because I don’t want to be dating right now.”

The Soloist: Jahna Lathan

The Attitude:

“I think Valentine’s is really cute, personally, even just for like platonic love and family love. I just think it’s a cute holiday. I view Valentine’s Day in a positive light.”

The Plan:

“I don’t have any [plans], I was gonna hang out with my friends but, most of my friends are dating people so I don’t know!”

The Rationale:

“I’m super indifferent to being single…I like my independence and individuality. I would lose that if I were to date somebody. Dating people, especially in high school, there’s so much you have to think about. I’d say I’m cool with being single. I’m happy about it. I just wish I had friends to hang out with during Valentine’s Day. I wish I could do a galentines thing.”

So, we know what everyone’s dying to know: What are we doing this Valentine’s Day? As long as we have our frilly decorations and boxes of chocolate, we’re good. In a relationship, or not. For this consumer holiday, we will be busy taking advantage of that fact and…consuming. We’re not worrying about the drama tied to the day, we just want to have our cute picnics and use this holiday to take advantage of the pink heart collections brands put out.