With Valentines Day upon us, we all need to spare a thought for our single friends.
I remember what it was like to be single on Valentine’s Day when love was in the air for everyone else. Work colleagues got big bouquets of roses delivered to them and my friends’ partners took them out for dinner while my postman delivered nothing but bills to me on February 14th. I’m not going to lie; it was a bit depressing.
I wish that Single Awareness Day had been around back then, so I didn’t feel so bad. That way I could have celebrated the joy of being single instead of just moping around in my tatty dressing gown on Valentines Day, eating pizza and watching ‘Bridget Jones’…again. I was never going to meet Mr Right that way, was I?
Yes, you heard me right by the way. Single Awareness Day is a thing. It was started by a high school student named Dustin Barns in America in 2001. He decided to form a group with his friends so that instead of feeing sorry for themselves that they were single, they would instead use a day to celebrate the fact. They chose 15th February as a protest against Valentines Day and would sell chocolates at a huge discount, trying to inform as many people as possible about the day.
The tradition continued to grow in popularity over the years, eventually spreading all around the world. In fact, it became so popular that the date was finally copyrighted as Single Awareness Day.
I think it’s a great idea, and its just a shame that we need an official day to tell us that we should celebrate our single selves. Even when we do find our life partner, we should still always pay homage to our own selves. After all, we come into the world alone, and we will leave the same way, so surely having some self-love is good thing.
So, if you are single, please don’t mope around like I used to, because you can’t love anyone else until you start to love yourself, tatty dressing gown or otherwise. And while all those couples are crammed unromantically in an overpriced restaurant and taking out bank loans to buy roses on Valentines Day, when the 15th rolls around you can treat yourself to exactly the same flowers for half price. Who’s the lucky one now?
