No Boyfriend? No problem!
So you're riding solo and Valentine's Day is approaching. Who cares! Well, it turns out many people do care. So join the Luud Health team to discover how to enjoy Valentine's Day if you're single.
Spending Valentine's Day with someone when you're in a healthy relationship can be fluffy and romantic. Perhaps you're being whisked off for a spa day. Maybe a romantic dinner and bubble bath are on the cards. And if you're not in that relationship? It can perhaps feel just a little bit lonely.
How to Enjoy Valentine’s Day if You’re Single
Is it possible to enjoy Valentine's Day on your own? Can single friends go out and celebrate Valentine's Day in their own way? Celebrating that they chose to be single. They chose not to be in a relationship right now. For whatever reason, they're just fine being single!
Who needs a movie night, a Deux, a romantic getaway, or in short, a love life?! Why can't singles celebrate their fabulous self with some self-love!? We don't all need to buy into the idea that we need another person to make us happy. Flying solo can be happy happy happy!
Let's go with the notion that Valentine's Day doesn't just need to be for those who are all lovey-dovey. It is totally normal to want to celebrate YOU and your tribe around you. So stop pining for those romantic dinners, let's look at how you can celebrate that single relationship status of yours and get out there and have a wonderful time!
Go Shopping
Yep, splurge some cash on yourself. Grab those other single friends and go for a spin around the shops. It doesn't need to be Gucci or Prada-esque. Just a little something that is 'to me from me'. Clothes, face mask, make-up, workout gear, it could be anything, a little treat to yourself.
Be Normal
In what sense?! Well just be normal! Get up, get dressed, brush your teeth, go to work, buy that coffee, grab lunch, go home, do the workout class you normally go to. Live a normal day! Because why does it matter that it's Valentine's Day? Let the lovers out there celebrate it. Not everyone has to. Not even all the lovers have to.
Script Your Feelings
Love songs, poems, maybe a love letter, spend the day channelling your inner erotic novelist and pen yourself some lines. Write to yourself as if your lover is writing it. Take a trip down memory lane and celebrate your achievements, your strengths. Spend the day falling in love with yourself. Spend time with YOU. You can still enjoy Valentine's Day if you're single - it's just another day. You might just have the most romantic day of your life realising how flippin' wonderful and beautiful you are.
Indulge in Some Self Care
Take yourself off to a spa. Go with some friends to a spa. They're not designed for just couples. I'm sure the couples would be thrilled to have you all there whilst they attempt to indulge in a day of romantic love! Buy yourself some flowers. Buy a friend some flowers who is single. Get a takeaway from your favourite restaurant. Go and eat with some friends in your favourite restaurant. Just because it's Valentine’s Day doesn't for one second mean you are excluded from restaurants unless you walk in with someone attached to your face. Go on, we dare you, go and eat out!
Ban Yourself from Social Media for the Day
This is something we should all do more often anyway. It's an amazing test of resilience but also incredibly healthy. So why not do it on v day? Why subject yourself to thumb scrolling through pages and pages of declarations that could be made on any day of the year? Why sit and ponder over the hashtag that makes me personally want to hurl up my latest meal? #CoupleGoals. I mean anyone who uses that hashtag is really just setting themselves up for a fall aren't they!?
Stay at Home. Go Under (the) Cover.
Simples. Light candles. Don't light candles. Run a bath. Don't run a bath. Drink. Eat. Be merry. Don't be merry. Just have some alone time. To the outside world of couples, declaring you are hibernating from the outside world for 24hours screams "they must be depressed". Nope. Everyone needs to address their own needs once in a while and why not do that on Valentine's Day. Grab the vibrator and have a play. Grab the TV remote and binge on Netflix. Sleep all day. Masturbate all day. Eat rubbish food all day. Drink smoothies all day. Quite frankly do what the heck you want. By yourself.
Stay at Home. And Host.
Invite all your single friends over. Invite all your coupled friends who think Valentine's Day is a gimmick over. Play games. Drink. Eat. Dance the night away. Or. Watch a romantic movie and sob. But do it together, with all your favourite people around you, and celebrate being single on Valentine's Day.
Give Back the Love.
Valentine's Day is all about giving love. So why not give some love to others who are less fortunate than you are. So you're single. But you're not homeless. Or starving. Give some love to them and volunteer somewhere you can help and make an impact on others. If you love pets go and volunteer in a pet rescue centre. Animals need some love too.
Hug a Tree
Nature can do wonders for the mind and the body. Go out and get some fresh air. Go somewhere you haven't been before or take a walk in the local park. Drive to a beach and feel the sand between your toes. Wander around a nature reserve and marvel at the wonders of the earth. Walk through the woods, look up at the sky, hug a tree.
Get Sweaty
Hit the gym, hit the outdoor fitness class, jump on the bike, get the trainers on, get exercising. Exercise releases happy chemical endorphins. Who needs sex when you can get the same feeling elsewhere?! Well, not quite the same feeling - better than sex?! Get sweating and let your brain combat those feelings of loneliness when those endorphins come flooding in. If you're at the gym, ever thought you might actually possibly meet someone at the gym?!
Make a Toast to Galentine's Day
High five to Leslie Knope for this one! The day was invented for all those missing a cuddle buddy on February 14th. Amy Poehler's Parks and Recreation character Leslie Knope introduced Galentine's Day in a 2010 episode to celebrate her female friends. You get to get in first and celebrate on February 13th. In Leslie's words:
"Every February 13, my lady friends and I leave our husbands and our boyfriends at home, and we just come and kick it, breakfast-style. Ladies celebrating ladies. It's like Lilith Fair, minus the angst. Plus frittatas''.
This day celebrates friendship! So whether you're single or coupled you can toast your friends all day long. It's proven that being within strong friendship groups, having a tribe around you, and friends you can rely on improves our self-confidence, lowers stress, and helps us deal with the various ups and downs that life throws at us. So gather your squad around you and revel in your circle of loveliness.
So there you have it. A few ideas to help you enjoy Valentine's Day if you're single, and cruise through the day without falling into a bottomless Bridget-Jones type pit of despair. Rationally you know it's just a day, on the calendar, that can be dismissed in a heartbeat. But it's that beating heart that might bring on a few feelings of loneliness. But consider this. There are plenty of reasons to feel totally fine about feeling single on Valentine's Day. Half the couples celebrating it might be secretly wishing they were single too! So either embrace it. Or don't embrace it. But just keep reminding yourself that you are YOU and YOU is absolutely fine all by yourself.
