Valentine’s the Finnish Way: Love Starts With Friendship

When most of us think of Valentine’s Day, we imagine roses, chocolates, and candlelit dinners for couples. But in Finland, February 14th is something refreshingly different: it’s Ystävänpäivä, or “Friend’s Day.” And it’s all about friendship, not romance.
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As a small child, I remember how teachers made sure every child was seen on Valentine’s Day. It was more than just exchanging cards—it was a lesson in consideration, care, and inclusiveness. Imagine what a vulnerable or shy child experiences day after day in the classroom, feeling socially awkward or overlooked. To be noticed, chosen, and included in this simple yet meaningful way? Imagine the joy of that child running home to tell their parents they were remembered and celebrated. I often think of those less confident children and how powerful it must feel to know, even for one day, that they, too, are special.
What Finland’s tradition understands is something I see again and again in my work as a relationship educator: friendship and desire are not opposites; they are deeply interconnected. By celebrating friendship first, children learn something profound that serves them throughout their lives: the best romantic partnerships are built on a foundation of genuine friendship.

Those early classroom lessons taught us about intimacy long before we had words for it: the classmate who shared their lunch when you forgot yours, the friend who waved you over to join their game at recess, the teacher who quietly remembered your birthday. These small acts of recognition and inclusion were teaching us what it means to truly see another person and to be seen in return. Loyalty, playfulness, and being valued for who we are weren’t just nice qualities in a friend…they were the very foundations of all loving relationships.
Yet within that foundation of friendship, something else must flourish for romantic love to thrive. Romance and friendship are often treated as separate realms, yet they share essential ground. The partner who knows how to be your friend, who can laugh with you at life’s small absurdities, who sees you fully (warts and all) and chooses you again and again—this is the partner in whom desire endures. And desire, as I have observed, is nourished not only by closeness and trust, but by curiosity, unpredictability, and the subtle mysteries that keep us intrigued and alive to one another. Friendship provides the safe, steady base; mystery and surprise infuse it with spark.

Finland’s Ystävänpäivä plants these seeds early, teaching children that intimacy has many forms and that the capacity to connect, to care, and to celebrate others creates the foundation for all loving relationships to come. This Valentine’s Day, we can honour that same principle: notice, appreciate, and celebrate the people in your life—friends, partners, colleagues, family—because these small gestures of seeing and valuing each other are what make love enduring, joyful, and ever alive.

And that, folks, is the Finnishing touch! 😄