We’ll be the first to admit it: There is no holiday that we feel less enthused about than Valentine’s Day. As bloggers to the single-and-happy population, we’re pretty sure that our readers feel the same.

And yet, precisely because we represent a population that is targeted and often excluded from the holiday, Christina and I face an annual dilemma: What are we supposed to write when it comes to Valentine’s Day?

Do we write about how we simply don’t care about it? Do we compose a brilliant critique of pop culture that illuminates, once and for all, how the holiday is just an overblown, matrimaniacal attempt to generate money for businesses who could care less about “love”? Or should we just ignore the holiday – since, after all, we could care less about it, and giving it our attention seems only to feed into the nasty heteronormative cycle we work so hard to resist?

We’ve vacillated amongst the “best” possible approaches: In past years, we’ve critiqued couples events, renamed the holiday (LGTOWAQAP Day for short), featured the quintessential anti-valentine, Death Bear, and even polled our readers for what we should do about this small annoyance. But this year, we’ve decided to do something different. We thought: So Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about love, right? Who says it has to be romantic, couple-centric love? Why can’t we redefine what we mean by Valentine’s love and instead take this opportunity to “Spread the Love” we feel as bloggers within an ever-expanding and vocal pro-singles movement?

So, in the spirit of “Spreading the Love,” we are featuring six excellent pro-single, pro-happy blogs below that were, until recently, unknown to us. We hope you, our Copious Readers, will not only peruse these blogs with an open mind, but that you’ll also build on our list by promoting your favorite single-and-happy blogs in the comments below, especially if we don’t know about them! Please, also, “Spread the Love” by sharing this post with your friends, family, and strangers (it’ll be up all week)!

Cheers – and have fun spreading the singles’ love this LGTOWAQAP DAY!

– Lisa (and Christina)

Josie Speaks Up

In Her Words: I started my blog for several reasons. One, to clarify how I feel about a range of issues, including being a recent (youngish) widow, and how I am surviving – and maybe even thriving- in my new circumstances. I also wanted to be a voice for anyone else out there in similar circumstances.

I have been amazed by the support I’ve received in the blogosphere from other bloggers, followers and readers. It has made me brave enough to reveal the real me and not worry too much that I really don’t fit into anything that resembles “‘normal.” I’ve also enjoyed reading and following other people’s blogs and knowing that we all share some common experiences. So my goals as a blogger are to dare to keep on expressing how I feel, and how I’m coping, or not.

I believe my blog promotes the Onely mindset by acknowledging that it can be tricky and trying being single in our world but also trying to embrace what is great about my world right now. When I first started blogging (I laugh because it wasn’t long ago), Onely was a blog I started following almost immediately, as I thought it offered a fresh, hopeful perspective and visiting there gave me courage to start my own blog while allowing myself to be open and transparent about how I feel.

Why We Love Her: Josie’s perspective is so important to the singles’ blogosphere – her experience as a young widow is not often heard, and yet it represents an experience shared by many. Plus, she’s a wonderful writer and has an adorable dog!

Book of Blue and Planet Waves (by Eric Francis Coppolino)

In His Words: Eric Francis Coppolino, founder and editor of Planet Waves, is a professional astrologer and journalist. A pioneer in the field of new planet discoveries, he has worked with clients and written about astrology for wide audiences since 1995. “The Worlds of Eric Francis,” his first homepage, was one of the first astrology sites on the Internet.

Eric is currently exploring the concept is selfsex so good that it’s worth making it as good as possible. Basically, sexual selfrelating with the realm of a Onely relationship, with emotional vulnerability. I document this in photos; solo, couples, different arrangements of people. There is mirrorgazing alone or with others; and there is masturbation companionship — onely people who get together creating companionship with pleasure sans the intense bond. I have a vision for friends to do this together over a phase of time, taking an m.celibacy journey together. I describe healing processes associated with this mudra, unraveling, setting oneself free. It may be a single article in the first go, for Valentine’s day, and some pictures.

Why We Love Him: Eric brings a much-needed perspective on non-traditional perspectives on sexuality and erotica (especially polyamory and self-love) that we at Onely haven’t discussed. But we think these are pertinent issues to being single and happy (his other blog, Planet Waves,  features other subjects and other authors, too), so we hope you’ll take a look around.

Pink Kisses

In Amy’s and Ellie’s Words: The Pink Kisses girls believe that being in a mediocre relationship is NOT better than being single; in fact, we encourage every girl to spend a stretch of time being purposefully unattached and focus on whatever fulfills her and makes her happy, be it her career, creative pursuits, travel, education, or whatever else leads to her own self-discovery and builds her confidence and self-esteem.  We’re not anti-men or anti-relationships by any means; but we make a point of encouraging girls not to settle for less than they deserve — true contentment in life.  We’re all about dream-chasing, goal-setting and doing the impossible.  In fact, we see all of those things (combined with a dash of adventure) as the very best way to live… and when it comes to past relationships, we believe that moving on is absolutely the best revenge.

Why We Love Them: We usually don’t promote for-profit sites on Onely, but these ladies maintain an amazing (and free) blog that is well-written and empowers women to find ways to shed heteronormative behavior and live happy-and-single lives. Plus, the products they offer (emails, chocolates, text messages, and – my favorite – FREE “burn his photo” e-cards) actually rock.

Hope Leslie Single (if you don’t get the joke, say it out loud!)

In Her Words: Hope Leslie Single is a thirty-five year old freelance writer and blogger living in San Francisco, CA who has been single nine years. She rarely dates, though not by choice. Though her blog, she dissects her thoughts on attraction, dating, love, sex, men, race, (interracial) relationships, and society while exploring the nature of single-hood and learning to fully accept and improve her own life as a single woman. And while the obvious goal of her blog would be to overcome any personal or societal hurdles that may keep her from finding a committed, monogamous relationship with a man, her ultimate goal is to simply be peaceful and content; loving herself fully in order to live happily and healthily – relationship or no relationship.

Why We Love Her: Subtitle Reads: “She’s Single as Hell, and She’s Not Going to Take It Anymore” – what’s not to love about that?

Off the Market and In the Moment

In Her Words: It’s official. I am off the market for a year. Flipped the “switch” to the off position. This cab is not picking up passengers. For those of you still not understanding, this means no trying to find or getting into a relationship for the next 365 days. To clarify, the moral of this year-long mission is two-fold: 1-to break the detrimental relationship habit of trying too hard and subsequently losing myself, and 2-to take a step back so as to keep from looking back. Because when I started thinking about how much time I invest while dating someone, and then analyzing and re-analyzing (and re-analyzing) after the door to our future shuts, and THEN wondering when Cupid would look kindly on me again, I finally realized that I was missing my own moment. So here I am virtually shouting from the no-access rooftop of my walk-up building in the East Village (which is, of course, located next to a porn store): I am a 25-year-old single living in one of the greatest cities in the world!

But more importantly, the focus of the year is to get out of my head and away from my heart long enough to secure the foundation for that fun-loving, confident, doesn’t have a care in the world girl that I lose every time I get what I think I’m looking for.

How does Onely fit in? Well, Onely promotes what I’m in the process of discovering: the pleasures of singledom and finding the joy in every moment, despite your relationship status. I just hope that OTMITM (my blog) will help others realize the same-as well as know they aren’t alone in their journey!

Why We Love Her: We just discovered Off the Market Girl and, although we’ve missed half of the journey (unless, of course, she decides she loves being single so much that she stays that way), we think OTMG’s “experiment” raises awareness (that – duh – singles are happy) but it won’t scare off all those heteronormaholes we can’t quite get through to (I mean, it’s “only” a year, right?).

Singlutionary (She’s Back! And We’re So Excited!)

In Her Words: I am an expert at being single. Oh, I’ve been that single girl who did everything a desperate, horny, lovesick loser does. And I lived to tell about it. Now, I strive to live a happy, healthy, pity-free life and I seek to share my love for single (and desperation free) living with the world. I am also a creator of postcards, realtor, homeowner, graduate student, former actor and a jackass of all trades.

When I began Singlutionary, I was in desperate need of catharsis. I was driven to reconstruct singleness in my life and in my blog from something horrible and lonely and pitiful to something joyful and perfect and whole. At the time, I didn’t have many single friends and the ones I did have were always calling me for sex and dating advice and then asking me why I wasn’t in a relationship. It was fairly awful. The only conversations I had were about single friend’s dating lives and married friend’s marital problems. I was bored and frustrated. But through writing Singlutionary and discovering other wonderful pro-single bloggers, I was able to find a community of people who were single and happy about it — like myself.

Now that I no longer battle any self-doubt in regards to being single, I no longer feel the desperate need to write and so I post less often. Onely does an excellent job of pointing out the political and social stigma that single people face around the world. For my part, I’ll just entertain. I was a miserable single for almost all of my 20s — and so I strive to be the voice that would have comforted me during that time when I felt isolated and alienated and annoyed. I found great comfort and peace in joining this community of thoughtful and engaging singles committed to eliminating singlism and I hope that others will too.

Why We Love Her: She’s funny, articulate, and has been one of our most vocal compatriots in the blogging world. She took a blogging break for a while, but we wanted to feature her here because – look out world – the Singlution is BACK.

Extra Extra — Singles News!

Seeking Happily Ever After (the documentary) is now available on demand and digitally. Check here for more info. Congrats to Michelle Cove!

I am afraid that my life as a happy Oneler may have made me oblivious to the signs of chemistry that a “normal” person would generally notice. I’m not talking about overt sexual advances (eww), and I’m not wondering about a first date (easy enough to figure out in the long run). I’m referring, instead, to a close friend (I will call him George here for the sake of privacy) whom I have never thought of as anything “more than” a friend — probably because we were both coupled when we first met several years ago (hey, even though I’m happily single, I’m not immune to checking out attractive single men).

Over the past few years, mutual friends of ours have asked me if I’m interested in George, or they’ll wonder why we haven’t dated. Occasionally — and usually while under the influence — someone will insist that we belong together. But I always brush these comments off as silly heteronormative proclamations; after all, we are the same age and have similar professional interests and are often the only single people running around our common social circles. According to common heteronormative logic, single man + single woman = HELLO, couple!

As you might expect, I resist that logic. But this past weekend, several friends who had never met George, and who had never even met each other, happened to be in town for an academic conference (I will call them Tracy, Jenny, and Dave). On Saturday night, I invited everyone out to a local restaurant. The only local friend who showed up was George, and soon, I noticed, Tracy and Jenny were exchanging meaningful glances. We moved on to a bar downtown for a nightcap and took separate cars (George drove Jenny, and I drove T & D). In the car, Tracy and Dave told me it was obvious: George is “in love” with me. There is “so much chemistry,” they said. I shrugged it off — more heternormative nonsense. But at the bar,  George sat close to me in the booth; our bodies kept making contact, and I kept thinking, this has never happened before, and neither of us are drunk. Maybe my friends are right — but how is it I’ve never noticed?

The conference is over. Not only have my friends left town (cheerful because they think they were right about George), but they have left me with a great deal of confusion: On the one hand, I think that my friends may have just been doing what so many coupled people (each of these friends happen to be married) want to do when confronted with two nice and attractive single people: hook them up! But on the other hand, my friends had never met each other before – they all noticed chemistry right away, without any prompting from me. So this gives me pause. And then I think about George himself, and I think about our friendship: Not only is he smart and funny, but he has always been quietly supportive (he was around but non-intrusive during a particularly dramatic breakup after I first moved to Louisville) and interested in my life. We never run out of things to talk about. And last summer, when I traveled alone to England and Ireland, he happened to be in Ireland at the same time as me, and I traveled with him and his family (mom, brother, and sister) for a few days. He is a genuinely kind person and a good friend, and I wonder all of a sudden why I’ve never “noticed” him, and I wonder if it’s because of Onely, because being coupled is not high on my priority list.

So I’m curious, Copious Readers, not about whether I should “do” anything about this (I’m pretty sure I won’t, for several complicated reasons), but rather, whether or not you think that having a Onely mindset makes you oblivious to possibilities that you may have otherwise entertained as a couple-oriented single adult. Or, alternatively, if you think that my friends are the clueless ones!

– Lisa

photo credit: zazzle

We’re celebrating with a blog crawl!

Although the myriad views of singlehood expressed by participants in this blog crawl do not necessarily reflect Onely’s specific approach to singles’ advocacy, we are happy for the chance to celebrate Unmarried Single Americans Week by participating in this dialog of diverse voices in the discussion of singles’ rights, single living, and single sundries.

Guess what — we’re nearing the end — it’s Day 6, and we want YOU to visit Living Single, where novelist Laura Dave (The Divorce Party) tells us how she feels about the single life.

(p.s. — don’t forget to come back tomorrow, where Dr. Bella DePaulo has something to say, right here on Onely!)

We’re celebrating with a blog crawl!

Although the myriad views of singlehood expressed by participants in this blog crawl do not necessarily reflect Onely’s specific approach to singles’ advocacy, we are happy for the chance to celebrate Unmarried Single Americans Week by participating in this dialog of diverse voices in the discussion of singles’ rights, single living, and single sundries.

Day 5: Please visit Dating Advice Almost Daily, where Marryanne Comaroto, author of Hindsight: What You Need to Know Before You Drop Your Drawers, offers her perspective on living solo.

We’re celebrating with a blog crawl!

Although the myriad views of singlehood expressed by participants in this blog crawl do not necessarily reflect Onely’s specific approach to singles’ advocacy, we are happy for the chance to celebrate Unmarried Single Americans Week by participating in this dialog of diverse voices in the discussion of singles’ rights, single living, and single sundries.

Day 4: Today, Terry Hernon MacDonald of Single Women Rule offers her two cents on Sex, Lies and Dating.