A Love Doctor Reveals How Being Single on Valentine’s Day Can Jumpstart Your Love Life

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, Sweety High chatted exclusively with Michigan-based Terri Orbuch—better known as The Love Doctor—for a four-part series about love and relationships, running every Tuesday during February. Check back each week as she answers some of everyone's most burning questions.

Last week, Terri revealed how to really get over an ex, and today, on this glorious Feb. 14 holiday, the relationship expert goes into great detail about why Valentine's Day is the perfect opportunity to embrace being single and really use it to your advantage. Keep reading, because Terri makes some excellent points about making this day especially wonderful regardless of the state of your love life.

 

1. Use This Day as an Opportunity to Work on Yourself, First and Foremost

"The relationship that you have with yourself determines the relationship you'll have with other people, including a romantic partner," Terri explains to Sweety High. "So when you feel better, more confident, secure, and you know who you are and your key life values, your relationship with a romantic partner is going to be stronger, less frustrating and happier over time."

Basically, consider today an investment towards landing you a desirable Valentine a year from now.

Terri explains: "If you're not partnered, it's a perfect time to ask questions of yourself: What are my key life values? What do I stand for? What do I want people to say about me? Do I want people to say that I'm generous? Do I want people to say that I'm smart? Do I want people to say that I'm caring, and giving and compassionate? Those are our key life values and it's really important for us to identify those in order for us to have a good healthy romantic relationship."

In addition, "Knowing our strengths are really important," Terri says. "I'm a good sister, I'm smart, I volunteer in the community, I'm a really good baseball or soccer player, I play the oboe very well."

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2. Use This as an Opportunity to Map Out What You Really Want in a Partner

It's easy to dive into a relationship for the sake of being with someone, but dating someone is so much more valuable when your partner exhibits characteristics you admire. Use this day to truly consider the traits of your ideal significant other and think about how to manifest those desires.

Terri suggests you ask yourself questions along the lines of: "Do I need someone who listens? Do I need someone who talks a lot? Do I need someone who will do things with me? Do I need someone who will get along with my family, my friends?"

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3. Acknowledging the Most Special in Your Life Will Increase Your Happiness Today (and Every Day)

"I think Valentine's Day is a day to appreciate and recognize all of the special people in your life—and in reality, a romantic partner, boyfriend or girlfriend, is only one special person in your life," Terri says. "So you have parents or guardians, you have friends, you have siblings, you have teachers even, right? And Valentine's Day does not only have to be for romantic lovers."

It's a proven fact that expressing gratitude naturally makes us happier, so use this day as a chance to do just that. After all, a happier you means a more attractive you, so consider this an insta-boost to attracting potential love interests.

"I encourage people to reach out to all of those people who are special to them and say, 'I value you,' 'You're wonderful,' 'Thank you for being in my life,' 'You're such a great friend,' 'I'm glad I have you as my sister,' " Terri says. "All of those kinds of appreciation statements are important on Valentine's Day and so I think that we need to do more of that, because appreciation and validation and telling people that they're special and noticed bonds people together and it makes relationships over time happier. It doesn't matter if you're single, just broken up, attached, partnered, whatever—it's a day to really show and express to the people who are important to you that they're valuable to you."

(via Shutterstock)

 

Regardless of your relationship status, we have no doubt you'll dig THESE Valentine's Day accessories you can rock all year long!