By: Annie Dineen, Adya Tiwari and Ruth Witmer

Lonely? Well, of course you are, considering it’s been almost a year since the world shut down. But you may be feeling a bit more lonely with Valentine’s Day approaching. We don’t blame you, it is hard to get out there and meet new people when your Saturday nights consist of Netflix binges and Zoom hangouts. And for the lucky few who do have a Valentine, it can be hard to connect during these unprecedented times. After all, how romantic is a kiss if it has to be through an N95 mask. But, at least the pandemic can be an excuse for why you won’t be going on a date this February 14th.

As if getting a reservation for two on a normal Valentine’s Day wasn’t hard enough, now restaurants are at half capacity. No worries, you can just sit outside in a tent, just remember to bring a winter coat, a scarf, a hat, and gloves (but only if they match Bernie’s). Or, if you sit outside, you can watch your waiter struggle to turn on the heat lamp for five minutes. Consider it dinner and a show. Here at the Briarcliff Bulletin, we suggest setting up a date over Zoom, because then all you have to worry about is your poor wifi connection and your dog barking in the background.

Valentine’s Day won’t even be the same throughout Briarcliff. Long gone are the days of anonymously sending chocolate roses to your friends or better yet your teachers. And nothing is the same without the Bellatones serenading us with romantic songs. Remember when they would ambush your friends in the hallways, belting out “Baby” by JBiebs? The good ole days.

One teacher had a particularly funny anecdote about an embarrassing Valentine’s Day experience. Mr. Bordonaro explained that he was given an abundant amount of chocolate roses from the PCF club circa 2012. With only good intentions, he decided to donate some of these chocolate roses to the boys and girls of one of his AP Macroeconomics classes. One student observed that B giving out these roses was very similar to the Bachelor. As if B couldn’t have been embarrassed enough- the next day the class had created posted with a cut out B’s face pasted onto the actual Bachelor at that time and titled it “the B chelor.” Now that’s a show we would watch.

Don’t worry though, I am sure you will wake up on February 14th to an abundance of notifications, or at least one from Team Snapchat. As if this Valentine’s Day couldn’t get any worse, we are just now getting word that Cupid, beloved baby and archer, has Covid.