It can tough to being single, especially on Valentine’s Day. How To Being Single On Valentine’s Day This Tendency to compare ourselves negatively can have a Major Impact on our self-esteem when holidays come around. The other day, my hairdresser mentioned to me that he’s not looking forward to February. The reason was that as Valentine’s Day approaches, many of his single female customers are, in his words, “totally freaking out” about not having a date for the night. My hairdresser works in a nice salon. Most of his clients are attractive, successful women. A lot of the single ones, it seems, are having a hard time coping with being unattached on the one day of the year devoted to love. It reminds me a bit of New Year’s Eve, in which many of us put a huge amount of pressure on ourselves to have the most exciting celebrations with the largest group of friends. In both cases, I think that we’re trying too hard to prove something to ourselves or to the other people in our lives, and that can never end well. A recent study from Sebastian Deri, a Cornell University, psychology Ph.D. candidate, demonstrated that although we usually consider ourselves superior in most categories, when it comes to our relationships, we assume that were less successful than the other people in our lives. This tendency to compare ourselves negatively can have a major impact on our self-esteem when holidays come around, especially on Valentine’s Day. We imagine that everyone else is in a loving, committed relationship, or at least that they’re out there, having a ton of fun dating, while we’re alone in front of the TV in our fuzzy slippers plowing through a tub of Haagen Dazs. The single women at my hairdressers must be mortified...

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