{"id":18271,"date":"2019-02-12T01:00:02","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T09:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/datemixstaging.wpengine.com\/?p=18271"},"modified":"2021-05-31T09:40:52","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T16:40:52","slug":"bae-for-valentines-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zoosk.com\/date-mix\/single-life\/bae-for-valentines-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Have a Bae for Valentine\u2019s Day? Live It Up Anyway!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Valentine\u2019s Day is upon us, and few things send single women running for the Ben & Jerry\u2019s faster than the thought of spending another February 14th alone. From the obnoxious singing gorillas in silk boxers (I mean, c\u2019mon, what self-respecting man\u2014or ape\u2014still wears silk boxers?!?) that assault our ears at Walgreens to the over-saturation of, \u201cI love my hubby soooooooo much!\u201d posts that wage war on our Facebook feeds\u2026 Let\u2019s face it: Valentine\u2019s Day is not an equal opportunity holiday.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why I wanted to flip the script a little bit this year and provide single ladies everywhere with a little positive motivation in case you happen to be feeling like one, is in fact, the loneliest number. Consider this: If Valentine\u2019s Day is the \u201cHoliday of Love,\u201d isn\u2019t this the perfect time to love yourself a little more fiercely? To remind yourself of how strong, and spirited, and independent you are? To celebrate yourself and your life a little? To take a moment to appreciate and honor all the different kinds of love you have in your life instead of focusing on the one kind you don\u2019t have? <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, in other words: Without a bae this Valentine\u2019s Day? Live it up anyway!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But how? You might ask, as you gaze wearily at the aisles upon aisles of gargantuan stuffed teddy bears and monster-sized boxes of heart-shaped candy at the supermarket. (Is it just me or does Valentine\u2019s Day get more and more extra every year?) Well, let\u2019s start with what NOT to do.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Step away from the sappy rom-coms and love ballads. <\/b>
\n<\/span>I\u2019m sorry, Ed Sheeran and Ryan Gosling, but thank u, next. I\u2019m all about a good chick flick, but there are 364 other days in the year to Notebook ourselves. Instead of watching or listening to things that make you feel sentimental and sad, how about amping up the girl power mojo? Brush off your box set of Sex & the City (or binge the whole series on your streaming service of choice) or rock out to Beyonce\u2019s Lemonade. Nothing gets me feeling more like the badass, strong, empowered woman that I am than basking in the glow of other badass, strong, empowered women.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Absolutely positively NO TEXTING YOUR EX! <\/b>
\n<\/span>Here\u2019s the thing, he\u2019s your ex for a reason. Don\u2019t let the misty water-colored haze of Valentine\u2019s Day become beer goggles. When you\u2019re tempted to only remember him as a wonderful, adorable, romantic prince (for example, last Valentine\u2019s Day my ex got me a dozen purple roses\u2014because he knew it was my favorite color\u2014and a bracelet inscribed with the GPS coordinates of the location of our first kiss) remind yourself of the big, croaking, warty toad he was capable of morphing into. (Less than a month later, that same ex broke up with me in a ten-minute long phone conversation.) Come tomorrow, Valentine\u2019s Day will be a thing of the past. Let your ex remain that way, too. There\u2019s no need to open the door to someone today who you\u2019ll regret inviting back into your life tomorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Don\u2019t isolate yourself.
\n<\/b>If you don\u2019t feel like going out and partying it up, don\u2019t. Believe me, I get it. Netflix is my middle name. But don\u2019t sit at home alone all night feeling sorry for yourself, either. Invite some girlfriends over to watch a movie. (I can\u2019t recommend the movie Girls Trip enough for a girls night in. You will laugh your socks off.) Or get out and do something social. The movie Dirty Dancing is coming back to theaters for its 32<\/span>nd<\/span> anniversary and a group of girlfriends and I are going to have a girls night and go see it on February 13th because nobody puts Mandy in a corner\u2014even on Valentine\u2019s Day. (Side note: I am low key obsessed with this film and have been my entire life. I even write about my pilgrimage to go stay at the resort where the movie was filmed in my latest book <\/span>You Are Enough<\/span><\/i><\/a>.) Does this not count as a sappy rom-com, you might be asking? No. Because if anybody embodies the spirit of a badass, strong, empowered woman who breaks all the rules to follow her heart and shake her booty, it\u2019s Baby Howseman.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, we\u2019ve covered what NOT to do. Now let\u2019s talk about what TO do in order to live your best life on Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Do something that day that lights you up inside.
\n<\/b>Again, if love is what this holiday was created to celebrate, then what better way to do that than by doing something you love? For me, it\u2019s dancing. I LOVE to dance. I always have. I recently got back into ballroom dancing and I\u2019m having an absolute blast. The dance studio where I take lessons is having a dance party that night, so I\u2019m grabbing a group of single ladies and we are going to go get our groove back on the dance floor. The waltz makes me feel like a graceful princess and the chacha make me feel like a sassy vixen, so it\u2019s a win\/win. Remember, when in doubt, dance it out! (Paint it out, run it out, sing it out, read it out\u2026 you get the point.)<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Don\u2019t be afraid to take a little social media break<\/b>.<\/span>
\n<\/span>If all the cheesy, over-the-top declarations of love from your taken friends starts getting you down, then shut it down. It\u2019s perfectly okay and even healthy to unplug from time to time. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat will still be there tomorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Remember to celebrate all the love you do have in your life.<\/b>
\n<\/span>Instead of focusing on the love you don\u2019t have, think about everything else you\u2019re grateful for. Your friends. Your family. Your co-workers. Your church. Your pets. Love of self. Your faith. There are soooooooo many beautiful kinds of love so why let the lack of romantic love in your life blind you to that fact? Plus, when you focus on the things and people you love, the great big bonus of that is that you tend to attract even more things you love into your life\u2014and who\u2019s to say that doesn\u2019t include a soulmate?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here\u2019s to not just surviving this Valentine\u2019s Day, but THRIVING! Valentine\u2019s Day, no matter how disappointing or anxiety-inducing or depressing it may be, is just one day out of the year. Regardless of what goes down on February 14<\/span>th<\/span>, the beautiful guarantee about life is that February 15<\/span>th<\/span> is going to come. And guess what comes with it? Half-off everything on the Valentine\u2019s candy aisle at Walgreens. I can\u2019t think of a better gift this holiday gives us than that.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some positive motivation for all the single ladies out there. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":18272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[884,899],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dating-advice","category-single-life"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDon\u2019t Have a Bae for Valentine\u2019s Day? 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