It’s that time of year again when the shiny red heart boxes are on display-shelves everywhere. That time of year again when radio stations are playing more love songs than they need to. Everywhere you turn, it seems, there is a fluffy, red, stuffed Cupid or a friend posting their romantic get-away on Instagram with their significant other.
Whether you like it or not, love is in the air. But while many single folks dread Valentine’s Day for the lack of romance and passion in their life, it’s easy to forget that love comes in many shapes, colours and sizes.
Some, it turns out, are not even human. Here are some ways some students are finding love.
For Isaac Csekey, an aerospace engineering student at Carleton University, intellectual pursuit is what gets his juices flowing.
“I try to learn as best as I can about – what ever,” Csekey says. “I might hear about something and might not know too much about it, so I’ll want to research it a little bit more.”
Who doesn’t have a song, or twenty, on their playlist that really sets the mood for romance? Besheer Akbari, a mechanical engineering student, says that his passion is a song.
“I’m in love with the coco,” Akbari says, laughing. It is a lyric from a song by O.T. Genasis.
“It’s the only song I have on my ipod.”
Setting and atmosphere is important in love too.
Sam Waiganjo, another Carleton University student, wears his passion right on him.
“I’m in love with my country,” Waiganjo says, showing off his shirt that says Kenya on it and shows the shape of the African country.
It is where he is from – he spent his whole life there.
“It is a beautiful country,” Waiganjo says. “Beautiful coastline. Beautiful people. Beautiful food.”
Whether you love your mom, dancing, or playing rubik’s cubes, passion comes in many forms. And even if you find no Valentine’s Day cards in your mailbox today and you’re spending your night in a onesie eating mac and cheese out of a pot while you watch movies alone, cherish the non-human things around you. That is the kind of love that lasts because you choose it.