On February 3rd, I walked into the nail salon with an idea and a question for my tech: “Can you do lettering?”

She smiled knowingly, as if she was in on some secret no one had bothered to tell me. And then she clued me in with a question of her own. “Whose name are you putting on your nails, girl?”

I burst out into laughter. Of course. It’s almost Valentine’s Day, the season of love, and the girlies are getting acrylic tributes to their lovers.

Not me though. For one, I don’t have a lover. This will technically be my fourth Valentine’s Day as a decidedly, purposely single woman. After spending my entire 20s in a relationship, I am savouring the sweetness of solitude.

That doesn’t mean I don’t get lonely. My mind knows that romantic love is not currently on the menu. My heart, well, she sometimes misses the memo and leaves me craving the intimacy of being someone’s someone.

So, if you feel a little down about being single on Valentine’s Day, please know I’m not judging you. This is not going to be one of those posts where I tell you that you can love yourself out of loneliness.

Humans are social creatures. Relational by our very nature. We are programmed to seek out connection. The fact that being unpartnered in a season about partnership pulls your heart strings is completely normal.

I know that as powerful as self-love is, it cannot fulfill the desire to be loved by someone else. But this is a still a post about self-love.

Let’s circle back to the nail salon for a minute. Part of why I laughed so hard when my nail tech asked whose name was going on my nails was because of what I actually wanted her to write. My nails currently read “SELF LOVE.” The acrylic tribute I am wearing in the midst of Valentine’s season is to myself.

Over the last few years, I have been committed to falling deeply in love with who I am as a woman. And it is has taught me some important lessons that I believe will be critical when I decide to let romance back into my life.

If you are single on Valentine’s Day, I want to share two of those lessons with you. Because I want you to be ready when love comes knocking at your door too.

1. Self-Love Sets the Standard for Loving You

For a long time, I did not know how to love myself properly. I let my inner critic talk to me viciously. I constantly abandoned myself and neglected my needs. I repressed, ignored, and downplayed my emotions. And I put myself in harm’s way, taking on long-term traumas to avoid short-term discomfort.

In other words, the bar was in hell.

I look back now and realize how often I had stayed in connections that mirrored the mistreatment I accepted from myself. Sometimes because I didn’t know I should expect better. Mostly because I was afraid that I would not be able to love myself out of the heartbreak of walking away.

I have discovered that I was wrong on both counts. Learning to love myself has redefined my standards for love and relationships. I am kind to myself, so I do not tolerate unkindness. I am patient with my heart, so I do not accept impatience. I prioritize my needs, so I do not excuse negligence or abandonment. My safety—emotional, physical, and spiritual—is paramount, so I do not ignore abuse.

Because I am the love of my life, I will not settle for anything or anyone that doesn’t feel as safe and warm. In the words of the brilliant Warsan Shire, “My alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude.”

In your season of singleness—whether you’ve chosen it or not—I encourage you to spend your time creating a manual for loving you and be the first to use it. The better you get at loving yourself the way you deserve to be, the less likely you are to stay in relationships that do not measure up.

A medium-pink candy heart on a light-pink background that reads: "'My alone feels so good, I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude.' - Warsan Shire"

2. Loving yourself well equips you to love others better

If you’ve watched Drag Race, you’ve heard RuPaul say, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?!” He doesn’t quite get an “Amen” from me on that. Because sometimes we give to others in ways we cannot fathom giving to ourselves.

I can attest that I have often had more grace and empathy for other people than I have had for me. I have forgiven people who have wronged me egregiously while struggling be kind to my own heart for small mistakes. Remember the unkind voice I mentioned earlier? I would never unleash that bitch on anyone the way I’ve let her mistreat me. And I recently wrote about how I have been willing to disappoint myself when I would never dream of purposely letting down someone I love. (Still working on it!)

I think sometimes we try to compensate for a lack of self-love by drowning another person in care and affection and hoping they will reciprocate so we’ll be showered in love too. But making another person the centre of your universe is not loving them well. It’s putting them on a pedestal that they can not get down from without devastating you.

bell hooks put this more beautifully that I ever could when she wrote, “When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means to escape.”

So, learn to be at peace being alone and unpartnered. This way, when you decide to love someone and to let them love you, you will not need them to be everything all the time. Nor will you try to be everything to them. You deserve a love where you love you, and they love them, and you both love each other.

A dark-pink candy heart on a light-pink background that reads: "'When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means to escape.' - bell hooks"

Of course, the girl with “SELF LOVE” on her fingers typed a short novel on the subject. But I hope some part of it makes you feel less alone and more empowered in this romance season. Truly, my Valentine’s wish for you is a self-love so deep that you will only accept love that is sweeter than your solitude and give love that gives others soft places to land instead of pedestals to stand on. Oh, and discount chocolate on the 15th!

Got some self-love lessons of your own? I would love to read them in the comments!