With the holiday Valentine’s Day just around the corner, it hits hard to many of us with the constant reminders, such as chocolate and roses, that we are are 100 percent single and alone. If you’re anything like me, you probably also think that Valentine’s Day is nothing but a huge slap in the face to single people all over the world. Most people believe that having a significant other to love forever is something that can contribute greatly to the happiness of  an individual. However, a psychologist named Barbara Fredrickson has other ideas about the existence of love.

Fredrickson believes that “love is a connection, characterized by a flood of positive emotions, which you share with another person– any other person– whom you happen to connect with in the course of your day.” It’s obvious that Fredrickson’s concepts about love are fairly new and perhaps even disappointing for a lot of people, nevertheless, there do seem to be some positives. it definitely makes me feel better about the mysteriousness of “true love” and allows me to lower my expectations.

As my standards of love are now lowered, I am on my way to being perfectly lonely. I agree with Fredrickson, in that all the constant bickering and waiting around for love is nothing but a myth. Although I’m not in a relationship this Valentine’s Day, I know it doesn’t mean that I don’t have love in my life. Just as Fredrickson believes that if we were to “sought out love in little moments of connection that we all experience a day”, the consistent agony of being so alone might actually start to diminish.

“It’s okay to be alone on Valentine’s Day” photo courtesy of Freedom House/flickr