5 Steps To Embracing Your Single Self In 2012

Here it is: the New Year has arrived like a bright, gleaming beacon of overwhelming hope and simultaneous possible death, if we adhere to certain ancient calendars. You have vowed to increase the size of your calves, keep it in your pants, buy more produce, and stop secretly caring about the Kardashians. But these mediocre New Year goals are the least of your worries in 2012.

Don’t freak out, but if you’re reading this, you’re probably single. You already knew this, of course, but sometimes it stings a little when a total stranger points fingers and is all like “You’re alone!” But no worries: being single in 2012 is going to be pee-your-pants awesome and abundantly fulfilling. Screw having a ball and chain, you’re going to go balls to the walls!

Before I go listing how though, let’s define “single” for those of us who still bask in the gray area of friends with benefits and middle-of-the-night “hangout” sessions. Single means you have no significant other, and by significant, I mean someone not genetically related to you for whom you’d walk on newborn babies or hot coals or dissolving wads of cash to save him/her from even an ounce of pain. The person you sleep with, even regularly, does not count. He or she does not cuddle under blankets with you pre-midnight and put up with your ice cold, winter-crusted feet to watch bad reality television. Your 3 A.M. “hangout” buddy doesn’t feed your cat when you’re out of town, or buy fabric softener in your favorite scent so you smell heaven when you’re dreaming. Single means you’re alone at the end of the day, both literally and figuratively speaking. But it’s ok. Here’s how to enjoy it.

1. Continue to sleep with your special friend

That is, however, only if he/she doesn’t make you feel like crap. But if you enjoy the company of a late-night someone providing you pleasure on a platter like a midnight gourmet cheese tray, stick with it. Enjoy it. Recognize it for what it is, and don’t try to turn that person into your boyfriend or girlfriend. If you two (or three…kinky!) have never left the bedroom, you probably never will. If you can’t accept this, then stop fooling yourself, or stop seeing this person.

2. Be all that you can be

No seriously, this is not just the Army’s vague mantra. We all know that when you’re in a relationship, you get round and happy from all the eating and midnight sex games involving whipped cream and chocolate and the love-for-one-another-through-thick-and-thin-emphasis-on-thick and the comfort and security of lurrrrve. So if you’ve always wanted to run a marathon or speak a new language or learn how to cook or sew or grow plants or dance the damn jig, now is the time to acquire new skills. Once you have a significant other, they suck the life out of your life in every area except love. (Just kidding! Kind of).

3. Come up with 5 adjectives and make a new friend that embodies each

For example: hairy, scary, weary, teary, beer-y. These are just examples, but it will force you to make 5 new friends that will all be different and likely represent the kinds of people you want or need in your life. Who doesn’t want a new hairy friend? And someone who’s teary-eyed needs you to cheer them up! See? It’s like friend ad-libs, but the results could be lifelong. (This will also help if you’re single forever. You’ll have a variety of friends to play checkers with at the old people home. (Again, kidding! Kind of).

4. Stop Facebook/ creeping, and go do stuff

I fall victim to this way too often. All of the sudden, my Facebook timeline is a linear mess of engagement rings and pink hearts and wedding pictures. You’re young! The pressure to “settle down” is an illusion, so get off Facebook, stop stalking your ex’s tweets, and go do something! Hang out with your new hairy friend, get high and go to an art class where you’ll draw old naked people, take a trip, go take pictures of a bridge…whatever. But don’t drink a bottle of wine (whiskey, 12-pack of beer, etc) by yourself.

5. Discover who you are

I saved this for last because it may sound a bit hokey and self-help-book-ish and therapy-derived, but if you still haven’t figured out how you like to spend your free time, who you like to read or where your train of thought can end up, how do you know what you like in another person (besides a tight ass and exquisite culinary skills)? Don’t be afraid to hang out with yourself…you’re the coolest person you know. If you don’t think this, then you need to hang out with yourself more. I’m still trying to figure myself out, and that whole “loving thyself” thing? That’s real. You’ll never trust or understand how your future-boo will love you unless you love yourself. Corny. Cliché. True.

And let’s face it, if we’re all going to die in 2012, you want to do it all now. So do it. Go do it. By yourself, damn it. Or, I’ll meet you there and be your new scary friend.