It’s officially the holiday season, a lovely time of year in most ways; however, those of us who find ourselves uncoupled circa November 26 through to January 1 can sometimes struggle to find our festive spirit. The world, it seems, conspires to make us feel “less than” once Halloween is over and family holidays commence.
If you love flying solo, good, because you can’t get these incredible years back; however, if you enjoy being single sometimes and the rest of the time feel as though there’s a grand piano sitting on your chest—especially around the holidays—we’ve got you. Keep reading for five ways to handle the “OMG, I’m dying alone!” panic attacks this jolly season is sure to exacerbate.
The Single's Survival Guide
Stay Present
Even the most confident of single ladies occasionally experiences a moment in which she fears entering old age alone; however, you can't control whether this happens to be the case down the line. So, we recommend you instead revisit the following old adage: "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."
Your current relationship status doesn't tell you anything about what life will be like in your 70s, but we believe you can boogie into your grave like the independent lady Beyoncé raised you to be. For now, stay focused on the present—it's better to be in no relationship at all than in one you've entered into solely out of fear for your future.
Expand Your Perspective
Each book on this list is seriously effective at building perspective around the whole construct of the couple in our society. We recommend reading Singled Out first.
Meditate
We know, we know—enough about meditation already. Still, we would be remiss in not mentioning the practice as a tactic for calming anxiety, specifically in the moments you feel an attack coming on. Meditation helps tremendously with the idea of staying present (mentioned in the first slide). Try this beginner's guide to meditation to get started.
If you're someone who just can't get on board with enforcing solo time as a way of quieting down the negative voices in your head, it can help instead to distract yourself. Try an app like DuoLingo for five to ten minutes whenever your mind drifts toward anxious—it's an easy strategy for refocusing your mental energy and offers the benefit of expanding your language repertoire in the process.
Talk It Out
Getting into a coupled situation is 90% luck and, yes, that is a figure backed by science. (It isn't at all, but you get our point.) Still, if you're single and don't want to be, maybe there is something subconsciously holding you back or sabotaging your odds.
To be clear, we are not saying there's anything "wrong" with you. What we are saying, however, is that there's a chance you don't actually want what you think you want, aka a relationship or the version of a relationship after which you're currently pining. It can't hurt to proactively investigate this idea as the holidays ramp up—try these online apps for an affordable in-person therapy alternative.
Go On A Date
As we mentioned above, your relationship status isn't something you can control as easily as, say, whether or not you have a job. When you need money, you take a job, and if you don't like the job, you usually stay in it until you've found a new one. Right?
This is not an advisable strategy for relationships. If you're doing things right in this respect, you should be single at certain points in your life. Keeping this in mind may help you to deal with holiday-induced single-lady stress.
That said, if you're truly panicking about being uncoupled, the best advice is also the simplest: Go on a date. There are zillions of apps out there that make it easy to find someone game, and taking action will enable you to feel less helpless about your relationship status overall.
