Validation Day <3

Instead of celebrating Valentine’s Day on February 14, my community celebrates Validation Day. Here’s some info about this lovely v-day alternative:

This tradition that ensures that February 14th is special for everyone, not just those with romantic interests. A card is handmade for each member, individually designed with the recipients’ interests in mind. The cards are available for the first two weeks in February, during which time members are encouraged to write “validations” in each card. For example: “I appreciate your hard work as our garden manager-thanks for helping provide us with yummy organic veggies!” Or for a new parent: “I love seeing you blossom as a new dad, caring for the beautiful child you’ve brought into our world” Or a simple: “Seeing your quiet smile lightens my heart.” The result is a personal card filled with loving, positive validations by the people we share our lives with. The finished products are handed out by the kids at a special Validation Day dinner.

This year, I made validation day cards for 3 members and wrote in almost everyone’s card. Since I’m pretty new, a lot of them were basic “Hope to get to know you better!”-type things, but I think that’s still important. I also got lots of lovely validations in my card, including one that my long-term partner solicited from my sweetie to print out and paste in my card!

Kimchi Cuddles celebrates Validation Day too!

Another fun part of validation day is a game called six creatures. In the weeks leading up to v-day, people can opt-in to the game. Then, about a week prior, each participant gets a game card with the list of all the other players and six options to check next to their names:

1. ants – work dates
2. puppies – play/social dates
3. kittens – cuddle dates
4. fish – kiss at the v-day party
5. rabbits – sex date
6. doves – relationship

The game cards are due a few days before v-day and the person designated “Ironlips” evaluates the cards and finds the matches. Participants are then given their results the night of the validation day party with only the matches shown, therefore, you can be a bit daring with putting down your intentions without a lot of fear of rejection. Also, the rejection aspect is further minimized by the fact that everyone has different rules they go by when playing the game. For instance, some people make it a rule that they never request sex dates or relationships from people. I ended up with several work date matches, several play date matches, one cuddle match (not including my current partner), and four kissing matches (once again, not counting my current partner).

I had volunteered to DJ for part of the party, but by the time I finished my set, all the people who said they’d kiss me had left the party. However, I did kiss/cuddle with someone who was not a six creatures kiss match and I can no longer say that I’ve never kissed a cis boy! My long-term partner and I were a little nervous about the event because when we started doing the poly thing, we really envisioned more of an open relationship style with fun make-outs with other people and coming home to each other, but then I fell really hard for my current sweetie and that complicated things. I was kind of afraid that I’m unable to do things more casually, however, I was relieved that on v-day both my partner and I made out with other folks and it really wasn’t a big deal. My partner and I actually ended up making out with the same third person at one point and it was very nice to be the middle cuddler. I felt very validated =:-)

Also, this is funny: http://www.buzzfeed.com/tasneemnashrulla/52-hilarious-activistpickuplines-for-valentines-day