Love it or loathe it, it’s a cold hard fact that Valentine’s Day (or Singles Awareness Day, to use a more accurate term) will be getting all up in your Facebook timeline very, very soon.
February 14th is a major minefield when it comes to social media. In a relationship? It’s all too easy to alienate all your single friends with one loved-up selfie or heavily filtered snap of your V-Day gift haul. Single? As annoying as your coupled-up pals will be, it’s pretty hard to comment on the main event without sounding ever so jaded and cynical. It’s enough to make you want to disconnect your broadband, swap your smartphone for a Nokia brick and spend the day composing romantic polyphonic ringtones instead.
To keep you, your friends and your hypothetical other half sane on V Day, we bring you our failsafe social media commandments for February 14th . Go forth and hashtag responsibly!
IF YOU’RE SINGLE:
However tempting it may be, don't post a stream of Bridget Jones memes. You know, the ones where she’s sat doing solo karaoke in her penguin PJs, or where she’s a Ben-and-Jerry’s-scoffing walking duvet. You will NOT eventually be eaten by Alsatians just because you refuse to participate in a consumerist endeavour invented by the card-making industry.
Do adopt a Kate Moss-style media strategy. That’s not to say that you should tell your best pal that her rose-petal strewn Insta-snap of a teddy bear makes her a total ‘basic bitch.’ We’re thinking more along the lines of La Moss’s ‘never complain, never explain mantra.’
So, while we all know that February 14th is essentially a massive moneymaking jaunt designed to flog bath bombs and Richard Curtis box sets, it’s probably best if you don't share this profound wisdom with your followers on the big day.
The same goes for motivational quotes – just don't post ‘em. Facebook and Instagram should be free of footprints walking on sand and sunset yoga all year round, but especially so on Valentine’s Day. We’re, like, really glad that you’re enjoying working on your sense of self, but others might see it as a modern day case of ‘the lady doth protest too much.’
If Valentine’s Day has got you feeling really het up, do call upon the wonders of modern technology and have a good social media cleanse. Use Facebook’s handy ‘hide’ tool to banish gross exes and that girl from school who posts about ‘bae’ on the hour, every hour.
IF YOU’RE LOVED UP:
Don’t use Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to share a lengthy account of your relationship to date, complete with tasteful photo collage. The only Love Story we’re interested in right now is the vintage Taylor Swift song - we can manage the odd cute throwback photo, but don’t go wild.
Do banish the ‘the boy did well,’ ‘bae done good’ and any other variations on the theme from your social media feeds. Who is this mythical ‘boy?’ And aren’t you a little bit – well – old to be calling your long-term boyfriend ‘bae?’
Along with Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, February 14th is obviously prime time for marriage proposals. If you’re lucky enough to get engaged on V-Day, congrats! If you want to share the happy news with your Facebook – ahem – following, then do wait a couple of days to do so – that way your pals won’t roll their eyes, and your post won’t get lost in a sea of similar announcements.
Instagram was basically invented for the purpose, but don't go for the humble brag. However ironically you’ve tried to deploy #blessed, it’s not going to go down very well on Valentines, aka the most un-ironically earnest day of the year. The same thing goes for kissy emojis.
Do know your audience. Is your feed filled with the sort of people who like to quote from Hugh Grant’s Love Actually speech when they’re stuck at baggage claim? Go ahead and post that picture of a cat saying ‘I Love You.’ Are you friends with a bunch of hard-nosed cynics who are likely to screenshot your #soromantic posts and use them for low-level blackmail in years to come? Maybe not then.