{"id":4378,"date":"2015-02-13T16:29:38","date_gmt":"2015-02-13T16:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cardiffian.jomec.co.uk\/?p=4378"},"modified":"2015-02-13T16:29:38","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T16:29:38","slug":"why-its-okay-to-be-alone-this-valentines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2015\/02\/13\/why-its-okay-to-be-alone-this-valentines\/","title":{"rendered":"Why it&#039;s okay to be alone on Valentine&#039;s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_4379\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4379\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cardiffian.jomec.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/sad-bastard.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-4379 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/cardiffian.jomec.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/sad-bastard-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4379\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4379 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/cardiffian.jomec.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/sad-bastard-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/noscript><\/a> Valentine&#8217;s Day without the hassle of company<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">VALENTINE\u2019S day is here and you&#8217;re smug, I can tell. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">You think you&#8217;re better than me because you&#8217;ve got plans and I&#8217;ll be all alone, seeing out the evening in a drunken Tinder swipe-fest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">You think I&#8217;ll be sad, all by myself, while you&#8217;re out hitting the town with your partner, or enjoying a candlelit dinner, or snuggling up beside them at home with a glass of Blossom Hill. Well you&#8217;re wrong. Because I&#8217;ve already had my Valentine&#8217;s Day. I had it a day early, and I spent it with the person whom I love the very most \u2013 myself. Partly to prove a point, partly to get out of the house, I decided to show the world and my mum you don&#8217;t need company to enjoy the occasion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">The Meal<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Lucky enough, there wasn&#8217;t any trouble booking a last-minute table at my favourite restaurant. I requested a discreet spot, so I could pay myself the attention I deserved. The Nando\u2019s staff were more than happy to oblige. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cJust come from work, have you?\u201d the waitress asked, showing me to my table.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cValentine\u2019s Day treat, actually.\u201d I replied. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cOh, so you\u2019ll need two menus?\u201d she politely suggested. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cNot tonight,\u201d I said. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cFull Platters are the best for dates, you share the main between you,\u201d she said. My pride forced me to accept. She insisted I\u2019d need wine too. She was right, what\u2019s a romantic date without some vino? Again, pride, perhaps embarrassment, saw me accept two glasses with the bottle. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Forty-five minutes later, I was three-quarters of a way through a whole chicken and the wine bottle was dry. The kind waitress had offered to keep the food warm until my \u201cdate\u201d arrived. More fool you, waitress \u2013 I was my date. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cShe\u2019s running late,\u201d I said, slurring and spitting tiny bits of chicken onto my front. \u201cHer fault.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Stomach piled with too much poultry, I declined dessert. I left to looks of pity and walked a drunken walk to part two of my romantic evening. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">The Drinks<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I stumbled upon a classy-looking bar and decided to plonk myself inside. I told the barman I was on a Valentine\u2019s date. He suggested a bottle of wine and I declined but he insisted and we settled upon two large glasses. I\u2019d hide from sight this time to avoid making excuses. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I was really enjoying my company. I was making myself laugh, recalling old stories, fantasising about the future. This was turning into my most pleasant dating experience. Things were going so well I treated myself to two more glasses. Medium this time \u2013 I wasn\u2019t going to show myself up. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">The Nightcap<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I don\u2019t know if it was the wine but I felt like ending what was so far a perfect evening snuggled up with a film. The kettle had just boiled for an end-of-evening coffee when I remembered my Christmas bottle of Shiraz was still in the cupboard and decided to keep the mood alive. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The Notebook is an absolute winner on dates and so I cwtched up on the settee in front of an illegal stream of the Ryan Gosling epic. With every additional glass of red the film became harder and harder to follow, and the jokes and conversation began to\u00a0dry up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So my attention turned to Tinder, where after a drunken swipe-fest, I was matched with a girl called Pippa who is a nurse and likes French films. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I woke the next morning with a dry mouth and a piercing headache. I think the evening had gone well. Looking at my phone, it seems I had clumsily arranged a date with nurse Pippa for next week. Who knows, perhaps I won\u2019t have to take myself out next Valentine\u2019s Day. But if I had to, it wouldn\u2019t be the end of the world. I\u2019ve proved a point. I think.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AdamRHale\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@AdamRHale<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VALENTINE\u2019S day is here and you&#8217;re smug, I can tell. You think you&#8217;re better than me because you&#8217;ve got plans and I&#8217;ll be all alone, seeing out the evening in a drunken Tinder swipe-fest. You think I&#8217;ll be sad, all by myself, while you&#8217;re out hitting the town with your partner, or enjoying a candlelit dinner, or snuggling up beside them at home with a glass of Blossom Hill. Well you&#8217;re wrong. Because I&#8217;ve already had my Valentine&#8217;s Day. I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":248,"featured_media":4379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,292],"tags":[2449,2082,265,1760],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-longer-reads","category-uncategorized","tag-adam-hale","tag-cardiff-school-of-journalism","tag-cardiff-university","tag-valentines-day"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why it&#039;s okay to be alone on Valentine&#039;s Day - The Cardiffian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2015\/02\/13\/why-its-okay-to-be-alone-this-valentines\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why it&#039;s okay to be alone on Valentine&#039;s Day - The Cardiffian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"VALENTINE\u2019S day is here and you&#8217;re smug, I can tell. 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