It's beyond time to celebrate Singles' Day properly in the UK – we can't be afraid to be alone anymore

Being single is an important, transformative, glorious time in a person’s life that all too often gets dismissed as a waiting period between romantic relationships

We should cherish time alone because of what it teaches us about ourselves (Getty)

Today is dedicated to the single people of China. All the single ladies and all the single fellas are celebrating their freedom from romantic commitment right now, on the aptly named Singles’ Day. It is on the eleventh day of the eleventh month because the number one signifies a person standing on their own (it also, confusingly, signifies two people standing next to one another, so there are quite a few weddings on 11/11).

Young people in China celebrate being single by going out at night, throwing parties and, somewhat magnificently, buying extravagant presents for themselves. Carrie Bradshaw, who always argued that couples shouldn’t get all the presents when single people deserve some sort of commercial reward for being fabulous too, would be extremely pleased. In fact, it’s the most lucrative shopping day of the year in China – last year, singles spent around £14bn in that 24 hours alone. Presumably the bulk of that was on bath bombs, scented candles and DVDs of The Notebook, but that’s just conjecture.

Now, I’m a big fan of this national holiday. Being single is an important, transformative, glorious time in a person’s life that all too often gets dismissed as a waiting period between romantic relationships. It is a relationship status in its own right and ought to be treated with both reverence and glee. If it were possible to make it mandatory for adult human beings to be single for a minimum of one year, I would do it in a heartbeat. Longer, if possible. I’ve done it for a couple of years at a time during my life and each time, proved to myself that I can survive on my own, enjoy my own company and really cherish my friends in a way that you sometimes, guiltily, forget to do when you’re in love.

Speaking of love, I think our fear of being single is pushing us into and keeping us in relationships that are mediocre at best, horrible and destructive at worst. I’ve watched friends of mine bounce from one lousy, sub-par relationship to the next because they’re frightened of being on their own. I’ve seen a great people get involved with middling, nit-picking lovers just to avoid the experience of having nobody to cuddle on a Saturday night. And frankly, I’ve seen enough. The courage to be single for a prolonged period of time is bolstering, and it really should be a strategic life choice for anyone who wants to get to know themselves and their friends properly.

Did you know we lose an average of three friends when we get into a significant romantic relationship? Have you noticed how quickly we descend into exchanging hollow “we should catch up” texts when people have kids? How much money did you feel obliged to spend on the couple at the last wedding you went to? Did you even know we have a Singles’ Day in the UK in March every year but nobody celebrates it? We have a peculiar obsession with the value of romantic love and it means we disrespect and dismiss the experience of being on our own for a while. We’ve learned to prize romance above friendship and we’ve forgotten how to do solitude, and do it happily.

Being single is not a shameful, dull or lonely life stage. It should be a profoundly lovely time where we learn how to function on our own, throw ourselves heart-deep into our friendships and work out who we are as people. Being single is worth celebrating and we should put aside a day – no, a week! – to do so. And sure, if you’re into being lush on special days, buy shiny things for your single friends or yourselves to mark the occasion. We could change our whole attitude towards being single while we’re at it, and decide to cherish those months or years we’re on our own for the revelations we get about our own psyche, emotional make-up and character.

Happy Singles’ Day.

Kate Leaver is the author of the forthcoming book on friendship, The Friendship Cure, out on the 22nd March, 2018