From an intimate dinner date, a trip to the beach or an Ikea showroom, there are several ways to celebrate this Valentine’s Day. Queer college students share their Valentine’s Day plans, including the love-hate relationship between the community and the holiday.
For many people, the Swedish furniture fun house of Ikea is not the usual place to celebrate Valentine’s Day, but for Claudia Regalado and Myriam Alcala, it’s where they’ll spend theirs!
Ikea takes the phrase, “home is where the heart is,” quite literally —offering a special Valentine’s Day dinner with a full-course meal including a starter, main course, dessert and beverage for $19.99 per adult. From a selection of green salads, salmon, pesto ravioli pasta and cheesecake, among other things, there are quite a few menu items to choose from.
Regalado and Alcala are a lesbian couple from USC, planning on spending their Valentine’s by strolling through the Ikea showrooms and enjoying their full-course meals. This is their second time spending Valentine’s Day together and they plan on attending the Tyler, the Creator concert to continue in all the love festivities.
Although Valentine’s is much anticipated for these two, Alcala shares that the holiday has sort of lost its meaning because their love transcends more than just one day.
“Maybe [Valentine’s Day] it’s not that big of a deal because me and Claudia go on dates either way. So it’s nice that there’s a holiday but for me, my girlfriend, it’s just like every other weekend,” Alcala said.
Jose Bizuet is a communication major at USC Annenberg. His boyfriend, Will Rivas, is a mathematics major at the University of California, Irvine. These two recently celebrated their one-month anniversary in late January and share enthusiasm for spending their first Valentine’s Day together.
Although their Valentine’s Day plans are currently under wraps to keep them a surprise, their one-month anniversary was a two-day celebration, with each planning a date for the other. On Bizuet’s date for Rivas, he took him to The Academy of Motion Pictures museum, specifically to see the Spider-Man statue, one of Riva’s favorite movies. Their excursion was followed by some Korean barbeque and a trip to watch the movie “One of Them Days” starring Keke Palmer and SZA.
Rivas organized the second date of their anniversary celebration, where the couple participated in an escape room, one of Bizuet’s favorite activities. Afterward, the night ended with the two snuggling up to watch the newest episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, a tradition they’ve kept every Friday.
Over the weekend, Bizuet surprised his partner with red and pink balloons, a red teddy bear and a bouquet to officially ask his boyfriend to be his Valentine. This is Rivas’ first Valentine’s Day with a partner, something he’s always looked forward to.
“I’ve always seen [Valentine’s Day] as a nice holiday. I’ve just always been kind of bitter because I want to be the one in a relationship,” Rivas said.
When Bizuet experienced Valentine’s Day with a partner for the first time a couple of years ago, he claimed to have a different perspective on the holiday compared to when he was single.
“When I celebrated Valentine’s Day for the first time with a partner, I felt like I had a different perspective on Valentine’s Day because I was always the one on the outside,” Bizuet said.
Many queer people are not allowed to explore their sexuality and experience relationships at a younger age, compared to their heterosexual counterparts, which usually means queer people spend Valentine’s Day on “the outside.”
Mateo Jimenez and Marco Bryan are a couple emulating a forbidden love trope since Jimenez is from USC meanwhile Bryan is a student at UCLA — a classic Romeo and Juliet storyline, but this time with two Romeo.
This is the couple’s first time celebrating Valentine’s Day together and first time being in a relationship during the holiday. Both agree that Valentine’s Day does not feel inclusive to members of the queer community since it is mainly catered to straight, cisgender people.
“It definitely feels like we’re kind of pushed out of the conversation when it comes to Valentine’s, in like mainstream media and also in consumerism,” Bryan said.
Bryan says that most Valentine’s Day gift items are catered to cis-het couples, reinforcing gender stereotypes and following rigid gender lines on what is socially acceptable for a man to receive versus a woman. Bryan brings the example that a straight, cisgender woman is not encouraged to buy her boyfriend flowers, upholding heteronormative ideals, meaning queer people don’t necessarily feel that they are part of the conversation on Valentine’s.
With no blueprint on how to celebrate Valentine’s Day, queer people must create their own rules or maybe that means there are no rules at all.
“That basically is the beauty of being queer,” Bryan said. “You don’t have to follow what has been socialized and what is the cultural hegemony.”
Jimenez and Bryan met in November, bonding over their shared interests in ethnic studies and teaching, as well as their similar music tastes. They built their relationship through long FaceTime calls before officially dating in December.
Love must have been in the air during last year’s Sagittarius-Capricorn cusp since both couples, Bizuet and Rivas, and Bryan and Jimenez, coincidentally met and started dating around the same time. Both couples met each other in November and started officially dating in December, only five days apart from one another.
Bryan and Jimenez plan to spend Valentine’s at the beach, making a trip to Santa Barbara together.
Jimenez considers himself a little bit of a “hopeless romantic,” although he has never had an official Valentine, he loves romance and looks forward to his date.
“I like romantic things. It’s something I’ve always wanted and just have never been able to have. So it’s just very exciting looking [forward] to [celebrating Valentine’s Day with a partner].” Jimenez said.
Although Valentine’s Day is typically geared towards couples, it’s also a day for spreading love to everyone, including friends and family.
Bryan says that passing around Valentine’s cards to your friends in elementary school sets a foundation early on that the holiday is a celebration open to all and not just romantic partners.
For Riley Rodriguez, a junior journalism student at USC, that’s exactly how she plans to spend Valentine’s this year —with family and those closest to her.
Rodriguez and her brother have many things in common, including both being queer and recently single; therefore, they plan on spending Valentine’s together with a day of shopping, dinner and indulging in a sweet treat.
In previous years, Rodriguez’s family will host a Galentine’s, prioritizing spending quality time together and having a good time. Rodriguez also shares that every year since moving away for college, her father will send an edible arrangement to be delivered to her in time for Valentine’s.
Galentine’s can be a great way for queer people to celebrate Valentine’s Day and something Bryan has experienced as well. Last year, his friend hosted a Galentine’s Day party on the bottom floor of their dorm building, encompassing food, friends, friendship bracelet-making and slime.
Whether you are single or not, there are so many ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day as a queer college student to spread the love.