And so, Valentine’s Day rolls round again. If you’re single, this one day can sometimes seem like the absolute worst. While your partnered friends look forward to sharing a romantic day together, being single on Valentine’s Day can really sting.
If you are single and find yourself experiencing difficult feelings, it might help to think about why that is. Perhaps Valentine’s Day comes as an unwelcome reminder of your single “status”, particularly when wider society stigmatises singlehood. There’s a widespread myth that romantic relationships are the most important social bond we can form and people who are single – whether or not by choice – will suffer for it.
Single people – especially single women – experience a lot of pressure not to be single, and the feeling that you’ve missed out on something because you are single can be damaging psychologically. For example, psychotherapist Mary Cole conducted interviews with never-married women in their thirties and found that some women experienced a state of chronic anxiety and despair because they hadn’t married.
Understanding where the pressure to be not-single comes from and how it affects your behaviour can be an important first step to dealing with any distress Valentine’s Day triggers. For example, research by Stephanie Spielmann and her colleagues has shown that some people experience intense fears of being single and that such anxieties can sometimes lead us to making poor decisions. For singles, a fear of being single might mean settling for less: in online and speed-dating scenarios, Spielmann and her colleagues showed that those who are more fearful are less selective – they express greater romantic interest in potential partners even when they recognise that some of those partners are less desirable.
Or perhaps Valentine’s Day is particularly distressing because you’ve recently experienced a break up. The end of a relationship is one of the most distressing things that can happen in a person’s life, often resulting in experiences of deep sadness, anger, confusion, sorrow, and anxiety. Sometimes, those feelings are accompanied by a sense of profound loneliness, especially if the break-up involves disruptions to wider social networks and support systems.
But, if you’re able to put aside any social pressure to jump back in to the dating game, the period following a break-up can be important in terms of personal growth and development. Therapists refer to this as ‘stress-related growth’, which simply means that people can sometimes respond to distressing events in their lives by growing beyond their previous level of psychological functioning. In fact, some people may even make the greatest changes in their lives following a period of stress or crisis, changing how reliant they are on themselves and other people, forming closer bonds with friends or family, or even changing life priorities.
Another thing that might help you cope with any negative feelings related to Valentine’s Day is to begin to develop healthier patterns of behaviour and thinking. In particular, investing in the idea that you are worthy, accepted, and decent can play an important role here. Psychologists and therapists are increasingly highlighting the positive impact that self-compassion – being kind, caring, and understanding towards oneself, viewing one’s suffering as an inevitable part of being human, and having a balanced awareness of negative feelings and thoughts – can play in promoting healthier well-being. People who are self-compassionate accept that they are imperfect human beings who experience hardship and suffering, and are therefore worthy of compassion.
To put it bluntly, there’s simply nothing “wrong” with being single on Valentine’s Day – or, for that matter, any other day of the year. Understanding that being single is part of the human condition, part of what it means to be human, can help you deal with any difficult emotions you might experience at this time of the year. And, more than that, individuals with high levels of self-compassion are more likely to adopt a mindful response to their suffering, without suppressing or obsessing over difficult emotions. So, however you decide to spent Valentine’s Day, try to be self-compassionate.
Reading
Cole, M. L. (1999). The experience of never-married women in their thirties who desire marriage and children (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Institute for Clinical Social Work, Chicago, United States of America.
Spielmann, S. S., MacDonald, G., Maxwell, J. A., Joel, S., Peragine, D., Muise, A., & Impett, E. A. (2013). Settling for less out of fear of being single. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(6), 1049–1073.
Swami, V. (in press). Attraction explained: The science of how we form relationships (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
