Happy Valentine's Day! You Don't Need a Man.

Happy Valentine's Day! Are you single? How about your best friend?

The two questions may be more related than you think. You might assume your romantic journey is a personal and unique one. But often, the number one factor in determining when you find steady long-term relationships is whether your close friends are already in them.

Call it pair pressure—and before you spend another Valentine's Day wondering what's wrong with you, consider the possibility that nothing is. That the wanting itself is the trick.

The domino effect

A lot of platitudes around romance suggest love comes when we happen upon the right person, or when our personal growth has brought us to a place where we are ready for it. But—much like the clothes you buy, the music you listen to, and the political opinions you pretend to have—there's a big social factor.

It happens all the time. A couple members of a close friend group suddenly (and rudely) find their soulmates, and a clock starts for everyone else. The single friends, who have built their lifestyle around the group, have to look elsewhere for that consistent companionship. (In straight friend groups, the sudden onslaught of relationships is often chalked up to biological factors—but in queer friend groups, you can see it happen at any stage of life.)

Soon, dates that once made for good brunch stories suddenly have real stakes to them. If a friend has settled down with a handsome lawyer named Frank, when you meet a handsome lawyer, you may start asking yourself if he's your Frank.

But here's what nobody says out loud: you weren't looking for a Frank until your friend found one. The need didn't come from inside you. It came from the empty chair at brunch.

The relationship race

That manufactured need is where it gets dangerous. Because what happens when you're the last single left, and the partner you've been promised has yet to arrive? Once you start keeping score, you're liable to reduce everything to points. Is your date as good as your friend's new boyfriend? Are you hitting the same benchmarks of seriousness with the guy you're seeing?

You might tell yourself the shift is natural—that as you're exposed to more couples, your values are just evolving. That exciting new conquests are rightfully paling in comparison to the nice guy who wants to binge all the same shows as you. But be honest with yourself: are you actually falling for this person, or are you falling for the idea of not being alone at the table?

Unfortunately, just because you're socially conditioned to seek a relationship doesn't mean you actually need one. And when you're feeling this "inspired" by your friends' happiness, you may become fixated on creating the appearance of it for yourself—accepting a dinner party seat-filler when what you actually needed was another night on the couch with no one. The loneliness was never yours. It was borrowed.

The permission slip

So what do you do? Recognize the mirage for what it is. There's no rule that says just because you and your bestie have matching tattoos you need to have matching boyfriends.

Relationships born from loneliness or social pressure tend to be bad ones. Being single on Valentine's Day is not a diagnosis. The friends whose relationships lit a fire under you are the same ones who know you best—and if you asked them, they'd probably tell you they'd rather see you happy alone than miserable with someone just to round out the table. 

This Valentine's Day, pair pressure is just peer pressure in a nicer outfit. You don't need a man. You especially don't need to be pressured by someone else's.

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