By: AJ Virtuz |

Being single on Valentine's Day has been a big deal in the Philippine modern culture. But why? Aren't you getting used to it? Kidding aside, what's wrong with spending Valentine's Day alone? What's wrong with having inner peace and finding contentment within yourself?

Did you know that in the Philippines; there are approximately 34 million single people according to the 2015 Philippine mid-decade census and there are at least 14.8 million single Filipinos who are above 20 years old? So you’re not alone in this.

You owe it to yourself to be spending Valentine’s day alone because at the end of the day, it’s you who you can always count on, it’s only you who will stay. Someday, you’ll be walking this earth without your mother, without your father, without your siblings, without your friends, but as long as you got yourself, then everything will fall into place. Things always get rough, there will always be ups and downs, but you did not give up on yourself, and nobody had done it before for you except yourself, so you should be celebrating and loving yourself more.

There are actually quite a lot of interesting things that you can do alone. So stop thinking that being single is the most boring and pitiful thing in the world.

Here are few of them:

Going to the cinema hall

Have you done watching in the cinema alone? Isn’t it great to be laughing, screaming, crying inside the cinema without anybody knowing you and think someone you know will judge you? Isn’t it great to be enjoying seeing a movie without someone beside you talking and interrupting?

Sitting at the coffee shop

How about sitting at the coffee shop, randomly writing stuff; can be a journal, a story that has been stuck in your brain for ages now that you’ve been dying to write, or how about listing down your short and long term goals and slowly putting a check on each of them soon?

Going to the club

I know, I know.. It’s one of the most frightening and one of the things you said you will never do, but have you thought of it? Living at the moment, dancing, enjoying the night, meeting random people and getting drunk (but not too drunk because you might wanna consider your safety and make sure you’ll be coming back to your own home after that night). Just the idea of observing different people with different personalities that you don’t personally know, wondering how their lives have been, are they okay? Are they really happy? Are they partying because somebody’s celebrating their birthday? Or are they partying to escape from their adult life? (If you are a writer and currently are having a writer’s block, doing this can absolutely help you and give you more ideas to continue your story.)

Going on a date with your pet

You’ve been working a lot the whole week that you no longer have time with your pet. So why not go out with your pet and have a quality time with them? If our pets can talk, they could have told us how much they miss us. And besides, they are the only ones who are always there and can talk to (albeit they don’t talk back, but it’s better than opening up to some people who will betray us someday, trust me)

Museum hopping

Going on a museum-hopping is a pretty interesting and fun idea, most especially if you are into art and history. You can learn and discover new things by going into the museum. You can learn more about the history and culture of your country and at the same time satisfy your eyes with the astonishing paintings, sculptures and other arts. (Read more about museums in Manila here)

Those are just some of the many exciting things that we can do on Valentine’s day.

Take this moment of being alone to reevaluate yourself and contemplate; this will utterly help you to grow and become the better version of yourself. So stop lying on the bed, overthinking about some things that will never help you and get out of your comfort zone. There is more to life so cheer up, brave heart!