Over the past year, I’ve shared over 50 lessons that I’ve learned in my single life to remind you that being single is more than a table for one (even when you’re eating a meal portioned for two), or going dateless to you’re cousin’s wedding — it’s a way of life.

Here are my top 10 favorite rules to live by while you’re single:

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By college, we’ve learned that sometimes the one that we want doesn’t always want us. And at that point it doesn’t matter that you would’ve loved him for the rest of his life, or that he promised you he’d never hurt you. Because the only thing that matters when your heart begins to crack again for the first time in a long time is you.

Lesson #51: Make Yourself Your Priority

We’ve all heard the advice from our best girlfriends in times of heartbreak—“Don’t waste tears on a guy who walked away from you when they were falling down your face,” “Don’t lose sleep over a guy who isn’t losing sleep over you,” and my personal favorite, “You were so much hotter than him anyways!” Whether any of it’s true or not isn’t the point, what matters is what you turn the situation into.

Rest assured you are not stupid, you are not a masochist, and you are not an emotional/psychological cutter. You fell hard. And then you looked up from your fall and realized you were alone. That’s all. Don’t look into it and try to make it some kind of representation of your overall personality. Take this one situation to deal with and move on from. It’s hard enough getting over heartbreak without being bogged down by your entire dating history simply because you’re desperate to make some kind of psychological breakthrough about yourself that probably isn’t even true anyways. Give yourself a real chance because heartbreak is hard enough to get through without you being hard on yourself. Read More »

As those more festive (and just generally happier) than me bring home unreasonably large Christmas trees that they know they’ll have trouble squeezing through their apartment’s front door, I have my own tradition of sitting on my doorstep with a glass of red watching them struggle to fit the tree through. You should try it. It’s wildly entertaining.

Lesson #50 – Christmas doesn’t have to be the happiest day of your life.

I guess you could say I’m sort of a Grinch. It’s not because I’m bitter and single (but let’s be honest, that probably doesn’t help) for whatever reason I’m just not that into that whole sugarplums and Christmas carols thing. I can, however, get down with eggnog and tacky sweater parties. (See, I don’t hate everything about the holidays!)
Come holiday season, it’s crucial to remember that it’s not supposed to be a couples’ holiday. In fact, most of my coupled friends are spending the holidays apart and with their respective families instead. But if the thought of spending it with your family makes you almost wish you could spend the holidays alone, here are some tips from single girl to single girl. Read More »

Lesson #49: Be The Change You Wish To See In The Dating World

So many girls go around and throw knives when they talk about how every guy is a douchebag, and no guy treats them the way they deserve to be treated, like the undercover princesses they truly believe themselves to be. But it’s usually those girls who are the first to laugh in a guy’s face, a guy who braved the social discomfort that we all know tags along with making the first move.

I’m so sick of hearing girls prattle on and on about how no guy is good enough, and yet none of them accept any guy brave enough to try his hand at being something she might actually want. There are very few things as cringe-worthy as hearing a girl rudely turn a guy down at a bar, and then turn her back around to her girlfriends and laugh haughtily while the guy is still right there. What most girls who say things like, “Ew, can you believe he even tried to talk to me?” or “I mean, I only talked to him because I knew he’d pay for my drinks,” don’t realize is that they themselves are the douchebags that they hate so much. Read More »

So Glamour magazine tells you you’re supposed to wear sexy underwear even if you’re staying in for the night, and your mother says you’re supposed to keep an open mind — even if that means going on a blind date with a family friend who you’re pretty sure used to get high on cleaning products — and people keep telling you you’re the crazy one?

Lesson #48 – You’re not crazy, you’re just single.

As single girls, every now and then someone is bound to call you crazy. Sometimes it’s warranted, like when you’re screaming at your ex outside a bar only to realize it’s just a guy who looks like your ex from far away (and with drunk goggles on), and sometimes it’s not-so-warranted, like when you pass on the party everyone’s been talking about simply because you don’t feel like putting on makeup. I mean, there is, after all, a difference between crazy and lazy. Needless to say, at some point in our single lives, we’re going to feel like we’ve not only lost control, but are spinning further and further away from reality. Read More »

Regardless of your relationship status, there will be situations and the people that stir them up, who at any point in time, will have you questioning what’s really important in life. It just so happens, though, that probability of that sort of drama infiltrating your life spikes when you’re single. There are some people who take the dating game a little too seriously, who extract meanings from things everybody else thinks are harmless, and more often than not, those people are looking for someone to blame. Luckily, the Single Girl Society has you covered with a general rule of thumb on how to deal with people who don’t always have your best interest in heart, or for that matter, don’t even really have a heart.

Lesson #47: When it comes to people: If they’re toxic, cut them out, and if they’re people you wish you could be more like, hold them tight.

There really only are two kinds of people in our lives: life ruiners — those that make you wonder how you’ll get by; and life savers — those who you wouldn’t be able to get through the hardship without. Read More »

Lesson #46 – Don’t Beat Yourself Up Over A One-Night Stand

There’s nothing sexy about waking up next to a guy you hardly know, wrapped in bed sheets from Target’s dorm line, with a pounding headache from last night’s alcohol and bad choices. If the walk of shame isn’t embarrassing enough, college girl code endorses instant roommate interrogation upon arrival of your place.

Whether it’s a guy you know, or a total stranger in True Religion jeans, the awkwardness of the morning after a one-night does not discriminate. Do yourself a favor and get out of there fast. However, while you attempt your hasty escape, make it a point to keep your cool, i.e.: don’t frantically tear through his room to find your keys (or underwear). Read More »

There a man life lessons to be learned from television series How I Met Your Mother — from how to craft the perfect “get psyched” mixed CD, to finding out that nothing good happens after 2 a.m. However, my most recent favorite comes from the “Mystery vs. History” episode where Ted and his date promise not to do any secret research online about one another prior to their first date.

Lesson #45 – Don’t Facebook Stalk A First Date

As much as we may not want to admit it, Facebook has become an integral part of the college experience. We use our profiles to track our lives and the lives of others’ and more importantly, we do it all the time. At this point, social media stalking has become second nature. So when the guy in your sociology class finally asks you out, you almost can’t help but look him up on every social media platform you can think of. Read More »

Lesson #44 – Halloween is the ultimate girl’s night.

Halloween weekend is here! Get your corsets and animal ears ready because if Mean Girls has taught us anything, this is the one time of year when skimpy outfits are perfectly acceptable…well, if you don’t count that Spring Break booze cruise you took to Mexico. If you ignore the fact that mass-produced costumes sexualizing occupations traditionally dominated by women is totally demeaning, Halloween is the ultimate girls’ night.

The perfect single girl’s Halloween starts with you and your best friends, getting ready together with the perfect party soundtrack playing the background. Halloween is basically a night of dress-up, so take a little extra time getting glamorous with your girlfriends. Just think, if you were getting ready with your boyfriend, you probably wouldn’t get to interrupt applying the perfect smoky eye for a Britney Spears dance-off on the bed. But with if you’re getting ready with your girlfriends you can swap around makeup, do each other’s hair, ask opinions about things your guy would’ve cared less about, and laugh about the Halloween versions of yourselves. Read More »

Lesson #43 – Sometimes A Friend Isn’t Worth Keeping

Maybe I’m just one of the lucky ones, but my high school years never once made me wonder when my life had become an episode of The Hills. The peak of drama during my high school years included deciding whether to play it safe and straighten my hair or to take a chance on my unpredictable waves on yearbook picture day. When college rolled around, the drama remained relatively low as I clung to a small inner-circle of good friends and the few boyfriends I had through the years. I can’t help but feel lucky with my less-than-turbulent recent years, but since it appears that single life and drama can sometimes go hand in hand, so here are my tips on how to deal.

We’ve all heard the classic rule that “no man is worth losing a friendship over,” and while I whole-heartedly agree when it comes to close friends, I can’t say that I agree in all instances. As girls, we all have that one friend who, for whatever reason, seems to only want to know about your dating life. Every time you grab lunch with her, the topic of conversation is always centered around what guys you’re currently dating or what guys you want to date, and every time you try to steer the conversation away from dating, she immediately brings it right back. It’s almost as if she doesn’t really care about you, because has no interest in anything you do, just the guys you date.

Though I’m sure many are bound to disagree, I consider this an exception to the “no man is worth it” rule. If the extent of your relationship with a girlfriend is based on discussing guys, then it’s not a surprise if you lose her friendship over a guy because it seems as though that’s the only realm you two have ever shared with one another. Clearly I wouldn’t advocate this for most friendships you have, but instead just for those few girls in your life who have never seemed to care much about your life outside of the time you spend discussing guys with her.

It’s also worth disclosing that if you do sever ties with a girlfriend over a guy, then you should realize that blame is an equal opportunity employer. For whatever reason, girl drama tends to place all of the blame on the girl and yet the guy, who is just as deserving (if not, more) goes unscathed. Just because you lose a friendship over a guy, doesn’t always mean you don’t lose the guy too. And if you end up making the judgment call that a guy is worth the mess he was partially to blame for, then out of respect for the girlfriend you lost and for yourself, let your guy know what he did isn’t going to fly again.

Lastly, and most importantly, remember that just because you sever ties with a girlfriend doesn’t mean you have to do it without class. You don’t need to make it your business to make this girl’s life a living hell simply because she wronged you and you really don’t need to destroy her life to rebuild your own. If you’re going to drop a friend, then drop her and don’t come back to it if you don’t have anything nice to say. Girl drama is cyclical if you deciding severing ties is the best decision for you then do your part to break the cycle by actually breaking it, and moving on with your life.

Got it? Feel empowered? Good. Now get the first 42 rules of the Single Girl Society