V-Day Countdown Day 2: The Celebration Of Single Life

Ritual dictates that in the auspicious nocturnal darkness, the fifth day of the week be set aside for commemorating the potency of alcohol on the female species and for the celebration of all things ‘Woman’, this sacred time went on to be called ‘Ladies Night’ and would be religiously followed by women all over the city of Bangalore.

Come Thursday evening and we would ceremoniously dress up in our ‘tart’ best. (No, no… our tart dressing was never as bad as what the kids these days wear.) Dresses were squeezed into, a little strap here, a little skin there, a bit of legs, ten coats of mascara, papaya pheromones smeared with care onto the pressure points, lipstick painted on and some strappy stilettos thrown in for added effect (and to make our bums look nicer). Three hours later and we were on our way to our usual haunt, the iBar, a sanctum of booze, boys, booty shaking and some bitchy gossip. The big wooden doors would swing open and the music boomed and blared. For the single lady, this is the Promised Land that God was talking about, but it wasn't milk and honey that flowed, it was gin and juice, rum and coke, unlimited alcohol in all its forms. Glasses overflowed, speech slurred and visions blurred. Needless to say, the memory of most nights were a blur too. Many I time I've know people who have woken up in bathrooms, or one the terrace of the building opposite to their actual apartment, or with a jagged piece of broken glass sticking out from under their foot, going “What the hell happened last night?” (True Story)

For all you single girls out there on Valentine’s Day, I want you to promise me one thing, please, don’t fret. I was once the girl whom, after watching 500 Days of Summer for the first time, kept watching it over and over from 10pm to 5am, crying so much that my eyes looked like it had just undergone botched plastic surgery. I was hopeless when it came to love, and I was even more hopeless when it came to being single. But the day you stop feeling sorry for yourself is the day you realize that the world opens up a lot more opportunities to the single woman.Yes, the single life can be absolutely fabulous, especially when you have a bunch of crazy girlfriends sharing the journey with you.

Being single gives you the license and the balls to do the following:

• Walking behind the hot American foreign exchange student/colleague/guy on the road, singing Estelle’s American Boy.
• Standing outside Gold’s Gym (or any other gym with glass windows) and staring at a cute guy working-out, then whistling and making lewd gestures at him following which he almost falls off the treadmill following which you laugh your ass off and leave.
• Sweet talking the DJ into letting us climb up on the speakers and dance
• Covertly pinching a random guy’s bum as they stand in line at a busy club to buy drinks causing them major insecurity and then pretending like you didn't know what was going on.

          Guy: Hey… did you just pinch my butt?

          You: What? Excuse me? What did you just ask me? Jesus! Yuck!

          Guy: (shocked, confused and doesn't quite know what happened.)

•   Meeting someone on a formal interview/meeting/conference who is irresistibly good looking and at the end of the conversation they say “So, is there anything else?” to which you shamelessly ask, “Yes, actually. Can I feel your abs/arms/pecks/whatever? It’s for the article.”
• Or use pick-up lines such as: “Hi, you were so mesmerizing that I walked into a wall and hurt my head. I need your name and phone number for insurance purposes.”

I haven’t even scratched the surface here. Think of the craziest thing and do it! Do it all, just because you can. What have you got to lose anyway?

Single life was one of the most fabulous phases of my life, but somehow finding love has been surreal. I always thought I’d be the kind of woman who would have the most fabulous social life, work her way to the top and have everything she needed only to return home to emptiness and loneliness. (It’s still not too late for that to happen in case Eric changes his mind *bites nails anxiously*).

Revel in your singleness. Celebrate it. And while you’re out having fun love will arrive in the most unexpected form. Be it that random someone offering you water after a tiring dance session, or a shoulder to cry on when your dog gets neutered, or just that acquaintance that, even in your wildest dreams, you never saw yourself with. But don’t go searching for love. You’ll end up with some moron (Been there. Done that. The whole story in the next post) So if you’re single this Valentine’s Day then do what I did last year. Emotionally blackmail a bunch of your single friends (there are more of them in existence than you think), drag them away from their loneliness, ice-cream and sappy movies, dress up, put on your pretty smile and go out and paint the town red. (or in our case, Orange, because we went to a Mad Orange Firework’s performance. One of the best bands in Bangalore). Stop wallowing in self-pity. Your time too shall come, and until it does, live life to the fullest, because life is just too short for you to be sulking around. And remember, if all else fails, Jesus loves you!