Please don't encourage singles to 'self-love' this Valentine's Day.

My radio asked me a question yesterday.

“ARE YOU SINGLE THIS VALENTINE’S DAY?”, my stupidly nosy radio asked me.

“That’s none of your bucking fizzness, radio.” I told my car dashboard.

Radio then went on to encourage me to show some ‘self-love’ by booking myself into a day spa. Later on, a poster at a train station told me to treat myself to chocolates, even though I don’t have a partner. And once I noticed the pattern, I started seeing advertisements and articles everywhere aimed at single people on Valentine’s Day, as not to exclude us poor partnerless plebs.

To all those companies profiting from V-Day, feel free to leave singles out of it. We don’t need to practice self-love.

WE ARE F*CKING MASTERS OF SELF-LOVE.

You don’t need to encourage me to put myself first. I’m single. All I do is self-love (get it? Get it? Sly winky smirk face here).

I give into every whim and desire that my heart pumps out, be it food-related (it almost always is), or spending four hours on the couch watching Grey’s Anatomy in a bath towel while painting my nails and eating peanut butter straight out of the jar (or as I call it, ‘Wednesday’).

If anything, my self-love should be DISCOURAGED. You should remind me to think of someone else for a day. But I won’t listen, because I largely do what I want.

The very existence of a person’s single status is BECAUSE of self-love. They love themselves too much to jump into a relationship they don’t want to be in (before you chuck a wobbly, coupled people, I’m not saying that you have done so).

Forgive me if I speak in generalisations. Not all single people feel the same, obvi. Our lack of partners doesn’t unite us in some sad little club, as is often assumed. As you may have discerned, I love being single – not to say that I don’t keep my eyes peeled for a quality partner (hurry the shit up and propose already, Prince Harry), I do… but I really enjoy free drinks the dating game.

In contrast, there are plenty of partnerless people who whine about it all day long. But I suspect that they could get an immediate date if they desperately desired one. Jeez, on Tinder, you can get a date with a creep in about 45 seconds*. They just keep letting those pesky self-loving standards get in the way.

No single person should be told they need to spoil themselves on February 14th. Valentine’s Day has as little to do with me this year as Hanukah or Chinese New Year. I respect that it is happening, I am happy for the people celebrating it, but it is unrelated to my current situation.

Couples, go nuts this Valentine’s Day. You are welcome to have this whole day to do really public couple things like candlelit dry-humping in the park, or whatever. Feel free to flaunt your coupledom all over my face (ew, don’t). Valentine’s Day is for you (well… it’s for Hallmark and other such companies… but let’s not get into that**).

Whether you’re in a nice couple who just likes to do nice things and Feb 14th is an extra day of niceness, or in a shitty couple who needs a reminder to actually show your love for each other, go nuts. In fact, everyone should practice love all the time. Love, self-love, group love, free love, brotherly love, couple love, lovey dovey love. Practice it everywhere – in your interactions with strangers, in your conversations with family, in your thoughts, in the shower alone… Go big on love.

But, to all my lovely single friends: Ignore your radio. Leave Valentine’s Day to the couples. You don’t need to prove a single thing, you single thing. Do what you do every day.

Whatever (and whomever) the f*ck you want.

*I was not saying that dates found on Tinder are all creeps. There are plenty of Tinder Surprises and Tinderella stories. My point was, if anyone is just looking for a date without any qualms of quality, a plethora of options can be found on Tinder.

**I genuinely do like the romantic sentiment of Valentine’s Day (when I’m coupled up), and I’m all for celebrating love… but according to Business Insider, Valentine’s Day is a $16 billion dollar business. Stop being greedy, companies. Leave the singles out of it. You get enough love.