Got the Single Girl Holidays Blues? You’re Not Alone

By Jess

“I hate these commercials!”

Throwing a pillow at the TV, my roommate pressed her fingers into her eyes and squeezed her eyes shut, doing everything she could to totally block out the tinkling piano and embracing couple on the screen. Another diamond commercial, another reason to feel lonely during the holidays.

If you think you’re the only single girl this holiday season, think again. All across the world, women are pressing the mute button on commercials where a happy wife is drowning in diamonds, staring at the big empty space occupying December 31st on their calendars with dread, and wondering if it’s possible to actually meet someone cute at an office Christmas party.

Living the single life can be difficult at times, but the holiday season tends to highlight those difficulties with an extra harshness.

Illustrating the single-girl-itus many of us feel during this time is a letter written to author and Gawker advice columnist Tionna T Smalls.

“I have a problem,” writes the advice seeker. “I’m 25, and all my girlfriends have boyfriends. Of course I want my friends to be happy, and I’m glad for them, blah blah blah, but I’m also effing LONELY. Honestly, it just really pisses me off that when they were single we hung out all the time, and now I’m lucky if I get a phone call once a week…Oh, and to make matters worse, I just found out (from MYSPACE) that they are all going on a “couples only” trip for New Years that I, of course, am not invited to because I don’t have a boyfriend and therefore am defective in some way.”

Never one to mince words, Tionna isn’t afraid to provide a tiny piece of advice about most girls that I have always secretly suspected. “I don’t know what it is about women,” Tionna writes, “but when they get a man, they get stupid and forget everything around them.”

Going on to tell her advice seeker that the holidays are only so long and will be over soon, Tionna doesn’t hesitate to say feeling lonely and isolated during the holidays is completely normal. “You are not being selfish by saying that you wish your friends will hang out and answer your phone calls more; you are being real.”

While hurling sharp objects at lovey-dovey couples on TV or yelling at your partnered friends for leaving you out of their holiday plans may not be the best way to demonstrate your feelings, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with admitting to the very human emotions of holiday loneliness and dejection. Do your best to enjoy the season, but if you’re really feeling low, don’t be afraid to tell people.

Chances are high you’re not the only one.