With Valentines Day around the corner, it seems like couples are pairing up left and right, leaving you, the perpetually single one of your friends, to rot. You find yourself wallowing in self-pity with a bowl of Ben and Jerry’s Half-Baked ice cream while all of your coupled-off friends are spending late evenings out with their boyfriends. You watch The Bachelor enthusiastically in hopes that you can experience a vicarious relationship through Ben and Casey B’s interactions. Unfortunately, it is about time these pathetic attempts at self-consolation come to an end because you, despite your frail, vulnerable outer shell, are extraordinarily stronger than you believe. So stop pining over your ex or hopelessly wishing for a valentine, and start celebrating your single status! Here’s how to take advantage of your freedom (AKA: your singlehood) and live everyday of your self-sufficient college life to the fullest:
1. Have an actual girl’s night out: Yes, an actual girl’s night out where the focus is friendship. Not a pseudo-girls night where spending time with girlfriends at a bar is only a front to a night spent scanning the bar for hotties. Have a night where you go to bar for no other reason than to enjoy the company of the friends that have made your college experience the best years of your life, the friends who have and will be there for you through thick and thin, the friends that made you smile when he made you cry. Get all dressed up, pregame with some old-school Destiny’s Child and Spice Girls, and head to bar where you spend the night dancing the night away with your best friends by your side. Make the goal of the night to be the last ones off the dance floor, rather than being the first ones home with a guy.
*Try this: Why not host a Girl’s-Night-In this Valentines Day for you and your single gals: hold a potluck style dinner, have everyone arrive in their favorite red dress, exchange valentines day cards and chocolates, and end evening with a showing of your favorite romantic comedy.
2. Join a club on your own: University of Michigan is a huge campus with endless clubs and organizations fit for every single interest. Despite your inner yearning to join the Squirrel Club, without any friends to come to a meeting with you never wind up stepping foot at a club meeting. It is time to push your fear of looking like a loser to the side and embrace your inner dorkiness! Sing up clubs that truly gauge your interests all by your lonesome. Whether it be squirrels, musicals, improvisation, journalism, volunteer work, or anything in between that grabs your attention-join! Be confident in who you are and always remember the age old Dr. Seuss saying “be who you are and say what you feel, for those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
3. Spend an evening alone: Though this my seem like a terrible idea that will only make you feel more alone than ever, learning to enjoy your own company is a vital life lesson college can teach you. Rather than spending the night feeling sorry for yourself, make a fun-filled night in plan and approach it with the same enthusiasm you would for a night with a best friend or boyfriend. Re-watch episodes of your favorite childhood show, order in some Chinese takeout, read this month’s bestseller that you have been dying to get to, and end the night a soothing session of yoga. The possibilities are endless.
Though some may see the chance to be independent as a burden, I see it as an opportunity. It is an opportunity to learn more about who you are and who you want to be, a privilege to have no one to be responsible to except for you, a chance to explore what truly makes you happy, and a time when you are truly limited by nothing. Rather than living in the past, or letting your present become so encapsulated by attempts to find a boyfriend, just let yourself live! Put the ice cream back into the freezer, shut off the television, and go explore all that this campus has to offer as you create your own identity, enjoy your own company, and celebrate your singlehood!
“Being single used to mean that nobody wanted you. Now it means you’re pretty sexy and you’re taking your time deciding how you want your life to be and who you want to spend it with.”-Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City