You don’t notice until Love Actually, The Holiday or even Elf comes on. It creeps up on you slowly, then all at once, kind of like the holidays.
You are 110 percent, completely and utterly single.
There’s just something about the holidays that make being single seem so much more … lonely?
It starts when the cheesy holiday movies come on. Jude Law crying over Cameron Diaz. Buddy the Elf falling in love with Jovie. Tim Allen finding his Mrs. Claus just in time (spoiler alert). It just never ends. You have no choice but to accept your singleness.
You try to ignore it, but all your efforts fail. Your holiday season will lack the cute winter ice skating dates and the dumb kisses under the mistletoe, but with the help of ice cream, good friends and probably good wine, you start to deal with the situation.
A few days go by and then your friends in relationships start freaking out about what to get their S.O.’s. At first, you’re annoyed, but then you realize that you don’t have to stress over buying someone else a gift. Hello, more money to treat yo self.
Soon, that small triumph passes and you’re back in your single slump. Winter break is approaching, which means Christmas Eve dinner is approaching, which means questions about your love life are approaching.
You brace yourself for the impending doom of questions about every aspect of your personal life from older family members. Thank God your aunt stocked up on wine.
Their incessant questions push you to the breaking point. Every ounce of independent girl power you’ve built up is gone.
But then, like an angel sent from heaven, one aunt chimes in and yells that all you need right now is to just graduate. You don’t have time to worry about someone else.
You somehow survive Christmas Eve dinner. You get your single-girl independence back and are ready for the new year. That is until you realize you have no one to kiss at midnight when the new year actually rolls around.
Two seconds later you’re on the phone with your best friend begging her for some single-girl support.
After devouring copious amounts of junk food, the two of you decide that being single might not be so bad after all. The holidays will be over soon and things will go back to normal. Your single-girl mojo is back.
At least, until your realize Valentine’s Day is right around the corner.