How to Stop Feeling Pathetic on Valentine’s Day:

It is Valentine’s Day, the day people celebrate love. Mostly romantic love. Those who are so lucky as to have found this extraordinary love take each other out to fancy restaurants and buy each other flowers and chocolate.

I am guessing you have not found that romantic love and instead of accepting that, you have gone out of your way to pity yourself. You may have gotten away with spending your Valentine’s day that way in the past but that is only because you hadn’t met me yet. You will not be moping around this Valentine’s Day. I will make sure of it.

1. What’s Wrong with Being Alone?

Why is being by yourself on Valentine’s day such a tragedy? Why is it that you feel sad, pathetic and lonely? There is nothing wrong with being in your single girl era even if you have been in  that era for longer that you would have liked. Being single can be awesome if you choose to make it so. It is your time to be selfish with your time and money. You can come and go as you please without having to report to anybody.

The mindset you have towards your singleness determines your level of happiness in this era. This is a very crucial part of your life. A time where you have complete freedom and independence. Where you can spend Valentine’s day however you want and you don’t have to stress about buying an expansive gift that your partner will love. Do you really want to spend this time feeling sorry for yourself?

2. Buy Yourself Flowers:

You can use this day to show your love and appreciation for the most important person in your life, YOU! Just like Miley, you too can buy yourself flowers.

Go on a solo date. You can take yourself to the museum, theater, picnic, shopping, restaurant, or cinema. Buy yourself a gift, dress cute and spend some very needed quality time with yourself. Make this day about you and the love you have for yourself.

3. Have a Self-Care Day:

You don’t have to leave your house for this. You can have an at home self-care day filled with all your favourite activities. Pamper yourself. Cook your favourite meal while your happy playlist plays on the background and dance around the kitchen. Bake yourself a cake, or cookies, or both. Have an everything shower and do an oil massage after.

Watch a good movie (that has nothing to do with love) or watch a comedy show. Do self-love journalling prompts. Spend the day relaxing, admiring and appreciating yourself. Fill yourself with so much love because you deserve to.

4. Get a Date:

As I said, you get to decide how you spend Valentine’s day. If you don’t want to be alone, you don’t have to be. Get a date just for Valentine’s day. You can ask your crush to be your date, a friend, sibling, parent, or anybody that is appropriate to ask.

Have dinner with them and exchange gifts. And if you picked someone on the romance spectrum, you can take them home.

Please don’t do this out of a desperation. Do it because it would be fun. Do it because you can. You are single and you get to go on a date with anybody you want.

Don’t be afraid to ask people to be your Valentine. I mean you are already alone and if they say no, you will still be alone. However if they say yes, you will no longer be alone.

5. Go to an Event

Go to an event, specifically a single’s event. This might make you feel even more pathetic but don’t look at it like that. Look at it as an opportunity to meet someone. Who knows, maybe it could go so great that you spend next year’s Valentine’s day with them. If you don’t find someone there, perhaps you can find a friend to talk trash about Valentine’s with.

Nobody will judge you there because they are in the same boat as you.

6. Valentine’s Day is Not Just for Romance:

Valentine’s day is not just for romantic love. It about all the different kinds of love in your life. Use it to celebrate all the relationships in your life. Have a Galentine’s instead of a Valentine’s. Go with your whole family to dinner, go shopping with your kids, have a movie night with your roommates, or go to a bar with your coworkers.

Wish everybody in your life a good Valentine’s day, be happy for the ones who have found love and go celebrate with the ones who are on the same boat as you.

7. Volunteer:

You can show your love by giving back to the community. Spend the whole day serving other people. You will not find the time to feel sorry for yourself because you will be focused on other people. Focused on helping them and feeling this swelling on your chest because of the love you have for them. This is a really great way to spend your Valentine’s day.

8. Do Nothing:

Who said you have to do anything for Valentine’s day?

You can let it be just another Wednesday. Do not acknowledge it and go on about your day. Wake up and go to work like you would any other day. This day does not have to be any different.

9. Throw Yourself a Pity Party:

If you still want to pity yourself, make sure you do it the right way. Throw yourself a pity party. I do mean this literally. Go out and buy your favourite snacks. You can go a step further and buy Valentine’s day snacks for couples. Buy the chocolate people buy for their partners. Eat strawberries with melted chocolate. Buy cookies with red hearts and all other snacks marketed for couples.

Watch a sappy rom-com and pity yourself while watching it. Cry because they are in love and together and you don’t have anyone. Feel sorry for yourself for watching a rom-com all alone on Valentine’s day. Play romantic songs about people not being able to live without one another. Play to die for by Sam Smith because you really want somebody to die for.

Sit there eating your snacks and cry your eyes out. Cry until it stops hurting, cry until you cannot cry anymore.

If you still need more ideas on how to spend your Valentine’s Day, here’s an article detailing 14 things that you can do alone on Valentine’s day (you are welcome).

Valentine’s day does not have to be sad. It can be about other people, yourself, your friends, your family, or just another day. And remember that you are not alone, there are tons of people in the world spending Valentine’s day alone, including myself. And you are not alone in the sense that you always have yourself. You are a person too and you deserve love. So give yourself love.