Single and (Un)Professional: Ode to Valentine’s Day

Oh, Valentine’s Day. Every year, you come around and make those of us who don’t happen to be paired with someone else hyper-aware of our solitary condition.

The past few years, my girlfriends and I have mourned our solo status, dressing in all black, eating obscene amounts of chocolate (drinking even more obscene amounts of wine), and cursing the boys we’d broken up with most recently. The nights usually ended crying over cupcakes and swearing “he wasn’t worth it!” then hiding from each other in the bathroom, drunk-dialing the a-holes, and trying to get back together.

I love holidays, so I’m not going to not celebrate a day marked in bold on my calendar. And I’m also not totally averse to the idea of Mr. Right entering my life and sweeping me off my feet before the clock strikes midnight. (However, if he does come along, he should be prepared to show me the same level of adoration and attention the other 364 days of the year as he does today, and this is something most men seem unable to compute.) But this Valentine’s Day is going to be different. Instead of sending myself flowers and indulging in an entire box of See’s Scotchmallows, I’m happily raising a glass to “Singles Awareness Day.” (Please ignore the unfortunate acronym.) I hereby swear I won’t be bitter about being alone, or pine for past relationships, or invest in ones that will never work out. Nope. On the one day obnoxiously set aside as “Couples only,” I’m gonna decidedly love being single.

Discussing this idea with my other ever-single girlfriends, we agreed that tonight is actually to our benefit. Everyone else who has that “special someone” has gone out to their romantic dinners and are at home lighting candles, opening generic Hallmark cards, and waiting for the planned magic to happen. How predictable. Meanwhile, wherever the night may take us, we’re practically guaranteed to meet only single guys. Hooray!

So here’s hoping they’re willing to celebrate the fact that we aren’t forced to be romantic and succumb to a made-up, consumer-driven holiday by buying me a drink.