Why I love being alone and single on Valentine’s Day

So Hallmark’s custom-made holiday constructed to make you feel shitty about being single is here. You can’t avoid the infamous heart shaped boxes polluting aisles upon aisles at your local drugstore. You can’t avoid the obvious attempts to get the consumer’s coin and you can’t avoid the talk and expectations surrounding it. However, you can reach over and remove the emphasis placed on relationships during this time. You can redefine Valentine's Day and centre it around what makes you happy. I like to use this day to remind myself exactly why I love being single (for real, like, no exaggeration. Serious.)

NO PRESSURE

First of all, I suck at remembering birthdays. My brain refuses to register dates, which definitely won’t come in handy when our hypothetical anniversary rolls around. Single me doesn't have to stress about holidays or scour the internet for that one limited edition Supreme hoodie or whatever the fuck. Friends don’t have the same expectations – they would never expect a limited edition Supreme hoodie. Plus, Valentine's Day, Christmas, birthdays and anniversaries all require $$$, which brings us to number two on the list.

IT’S CHEAPER

Dates are expensive. Dinner, tickets and transportation all come at a price. Especially when you first start dating someone and your usual cheap hang-out spot just doesn't cut it after a while (like, what do you mean you don’t want dollar pizza everyday?) Let’s be honest, you want to impress whoever you’re going out with and being a freelance artist or student in NYC just doesn't allow for lavish, bachelor-level dates. Unless you’re like one of my best friends, who’s dating some random millionaire she found on Tinder, then you're totally fine. But you’re probably not and cause you’re real modern you’ll have to split the bill going somewhere nicer than the dollar pizza place you always go and actually wish you were.

RELATIONSHIPS ARE REALLY TIME CONSUMING

Listen, I got things to do. I have art to make and friends that I haven’t seen in three months. I have weekends to spend in bed because I’m fucking lazy. I have weeks that I want to pass by without me having to have spoken to anyone. There’s freedom in lack of an obligation to communicate with someone. Being single, you can prioritise your friends without this innate struggle to balance out your relationship and your friends. We’ve all seen friendships dwindle upon the introduction of a new partner. It’s annoying but I totally understand how easy it is to get consumed in spontaneous artsy boys with brown eyes who say “whatever” a lot. Still it’s totally inexcusable, so if you’re dating a guy with a guitar, ditch him for me just this once, I’ll even let you FaceTime him in the Uber.

IT MAKES ME MORE CREATIVE

When a cute person barges into my late night thoughts, my art and music becomes obnoxiously gushy, with lyrics about how his hands look against the steering wheel at 3 am. Vomit. It's annoying. I like viewing things from an unbiased perspective, I like allowing my thoughts to roam wildly without a centrepiece, I like falling asleep to epiphanies and tiny observations about my day rather than why someone’s not texting me back. Although it's impossible to block out butterflies and it’s impossible to not allow interesting people to dominate your thoughts once in a while, I genuinely enjoy not having a person all my creative energy gravitates toward.

Of course, I'm definitely not knocking relationships. I hope that you the reader knows damn well you’re adorable and I hope you’re romanced on Sunday if you want to be. However, if you don’t have someone in your life, it’s all good, trust me. Don’t stress it, hang out with your friends, write about the positives of your single life experience, take your self on a date and look good as fuck while you’re at it.