Valentine's Day for Singles

Valentine's Day is the day when people celebrate their love. Some of the most popular gifts exchanged are roses, chocolates and fluffy red teddy bears. This is all very fine but what do single people do on Valentine's Day? There are several ways to spend valentine's Day when you are single.

Make a date with yourself: you can go to the cinema on your own on Valentine's day but avoid romantic comedies on that night, unless you want a soundtrack filled with kissing noises. Go and see a horror movie, a comedy or a good thriller (one without George Clooney or Brad Pitt, these are the movies women are most likely to drag their boyfriends to).

Do something new: go and see stand-up comedy, a concert or even bowling on your own. Ignore the pitying looks of enamoured onlookers and show them that single people are entitled to a night out too even if it's Valentine's Day.

Book a table for two in a restaurant: when your date doesn't show up, pretend to be annoyed but be nice to the staff. The restaurant owner might take pity on you and offer you a freebie. If you're lucky, there might be another person in the restaurant whose date really didn't show up and who could become your new best friend or even a real date.

Look for love online: I am sure there will be some Facebook events for singles on Valentine's day. Grab a beer, join in the conversations and have fun. You might get to know some interesting people if not find love and even if you don't believe in virtual dating, you might get a good laugh at the Facebook geeks' expense.

If you are a social networking geek (and also a bit of a troll), log on to Twitter and make-up or break-up celebrity couples, or at least create a rumor, preferably involving Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Anniston or any combination of the above. Of course you will need photos to prove this but if you're a geek, you're also a genius at photoshop. Don't forget to sit back and watch the reactions of other Twitter users and practice your best evil laugh. I know this is a sad way of spending Valentine's Day but I suspect Internet trolls do this all the time.

Find out in advance which countries don't celebrate Valentine's day and book a holiday there. You may have to go as far as India or Saudi Arabia but if you can't stand all the tongue-sucking of Valentine's Day, what better excuse to visit a new country?

If you're single like me, you can treat Valentine's day as any normal day of the year. Some of the advantages are that you can pick your own TV programme or DVD, you don't have to exfoliate, wax, spend an hour doing your hair and make-up and you don't have to worry about snoring or farting in bed.