Valentine's Day: The Practice Of Self-Romance
Why Self Romance Is The Most Honest Kind.
(This post was originally published on February 14th 2019 and updated on January 15th 2026)
There's a particular kind of pressure that descends in early February. The shop windows fill with red velvet and champagne promises. Your inbox becomes a parade of couple's packages and romantic getaways. And if you're single - or simply spending Valentine's Day without a partner - the cultural message is clear: this day isn't for you. Or worse, it's a day to console yourself through, to survive until the heart-shaped chocolate goes on sale and normal life resumes.
But what if we rejected that narrative entirely? What if Valentine's Day, spent alone, wasn't a consolation prize but an opportunity - a chance to practice the kind of romance that actually endures, the kind that starts and ends with how you treat yourself?
Self-romance sounds like the sort of phrase that gets thrown around lightly, often accompanied by bubble baths and face masks, as though loving yourself were as simple as scheduling spa time. But real self-romance is something else entirely. It's not performative or aesthetic. It's the intimate, ongoing practice of treating yourself as worthy of attention, care, and pleasure - not because you've earned it, not because you look a certain way, but because you exist. And Valentine's Day, for all its commercial noise, can be reclaimed as a day to practice that.
Image: Philipe Boakye
What Self-Romance Actually Means
Self-romance isn't about replicating what you'd do with a partner-candlelit dinners for one, buying yourself roses because no one else did. Those gestures are fine if they genuinely feel good, but they're not the point. Self-romance is deeper than mimicry. It's about the quality of attention you give yourself. It's about presence, not performance.
It means noticing what your body needs and responding with care rather than obligation. It means choosing clothes - and yes, lingerie - that make you feel like yourself, not like you're auditioning for someone else's approval. It means creating space in your day for things that feel nourishing rather than just productive. It means speaking to yourself the way you'd speak to someone you deeply respect.
This isn't indulgence. It's the foundation. Because the relationship you have with yourself shapes every other relationship in your life. And if that relationship is built on criticism, neglect, or the belief that you're only worth caring for when you meet certain conditions, then no amount of external romance will ever feel like enough.
The Permission You Don't Need (But Might Still Want)
Here's something worth saying plainly: you don't need permission to enjoy Valentine's Day alone. You don't need to frame it as "treating yourself" in that slightly apologetic way, as though you're making up for an absence. You don't need to prove you're thriving or post about your self-care Sunday to validate the choice. You're allowed to simply be-alone, content, or somewhere in between.
But if you do want permission, consider this: spending Valentine's Day focused on yourself isn't selfish. It's strategic. Because the work of building confidence, of learning to feel at home in your body and your life, doesn't pause for romantic holidays. In fact, Valentine's Day-with all its external noise about what love should look like-might be the perfect day to tune inward and practice a different kind of devotion.
What The Practice Looks Like
Self-romance, like confidence, is a practice. It's not something you do once and check off. It's a series of small, repeated acts that reinforce a larger belief: that you are worth your own time, attention, and tenderness.
Start with the body. Not in a self-improvement way, but in a self-acknowledged way. Your body has carried you through everything - every difficult conversation, every triumph, every moment of doubt and resilience. Valentine's Day is as good a day as any to thank it. Not by pushing it harder at the gym or restricting what you eat, but by offering it softness. A long bath, body oil massaged slowly into tired muscles, clean sheets, and the kind of pajamas that feel like a second skin. Lingerie that makes you feel powerful, even if no one else sees it, these aren't luxuries, they are respect made tangible.
Create atmosphere. This matters more than you might think. Atmosphere signals to your nervous system that this moment is different, that you're worth the effort. Light candles not because it's romantic, but because soft light feels better than harsh overhead bulbs. Put on music that makes you feel something - jazz, classical, whatever moves you. Pour yourself a drink in a proper glass, not a mug. Prepare food that takes time, that smells good while it cooks, that you eat slowly rather than standing at the counter scrolling through your phone. Atmosphere isn't about aesthetics for their own sake. It's about signaling to yourself: you matter enough to make this moment beautiful.
Spend time with your own mind. Self-romance includes your inner life, not just your physical one. What does your mind need? Maybe it's journaling - not the forced gratitude kind, but the honest, unfiltered kind where you write what you actually think and feel. Maybe it's reading something that stretches you, that makes you consider a new perspective. Maybe it's simply sitting in silence without immediately reaching for distraction. Your thoughts deserve your attention too, even-especially - the uncomfortable ones.
Choose what feels true, not what looks right. If your ideal Valentine's evening involves staying in bed with a book and ordering takeaway, do that. If it's getting dressed up and taking yourself to dinner, do that. If it's spending the day with friends who make you laugh until your face hurts, do that. The point isn't to follow a script for how self-love should look. It's to honour what actually feels good to you, even if it wouldn't photograph well or make sense to anyone else.
Image: Philipe Boakye
The Lingerie Question
Let's address this directly, because it comes up: why would you wear beautiful lingerie if you're alone? Why bother with silk and lace when no one's there to see it? Because it's not for anyone else. It never was.
The best lingerie - the kind that actually matters - is the kind you wear for the feeling it gives you. The way it fits. The way it moves with your body. The way it makes you stand a little taller, feel a little more yourself. When you choose pieces that feel beautiful against your skin, you're not performing femininity for an audience. You're inhabiting it for yourself.
Valentine's Day alone is the perfect time to experiment with this-to put on something that makes you feel powerful or sensual or simply comfortable in your own skin, and to notice how it shifts the way you move through the evening. Not because you're trying to seduce yourself, but because clothing - especially the clothing closest to your body - affects how you feel. And feeling good in your body, for no reason other than because you can, is one of the most underrated acts of self-romance there is.
When It Feels Hard
Not everyone will feel celebratory on Valentine's Day, and that's worth acknowledging. If you're navigating heartbreak, if being alone feels lonely rather than liberating, if the day highlights an absence you wish you could fill-those feelings are valid. Self-romance doesn't mean forcing positivity or pretending you feel differently than you do.
But it does mean meeting yourself with compassion. It means recognizing that difficult feelings don't make you broken or unworthy of care. If anything, they're proof that you're human, that you want connection and love - and there's nothing wrong with that.
On hard days, self-romance might look less like celebration and more like survival. It might mean letting yourself cry without judgment. It might mean reaching out to a friend rather than isolating. It might mean going to bed early because rest is what you need, not productivity or perfection. Self-romance isn't always soft and glowing. Sometimes it's just the act of refusing to abandon yourself when things feel difficult.
The Longer View
Here's what matters most: Valentine's Day is one day. But the practice of self-romance - of treating yourself as someone worthy of care, attention, and pleasure-is a daily choice. The relationship you have with yourself is the only one guaranteed to last your entire life and it's worth investing in.
So if you spend Valentine's Day alone this year, consider it practice. Practice for the kind of presence you want to bring to your own life. Practice for the confidence that comes not from being chosen by someone else, but from choosing yourself, again and again, in small and intentional ways.
You don't need roses or reservations to make that matter. You just need to show up for yourself the way you'd show up for someone you love. Fully. Honestly. Without conditions.
That's the romance that lasts.
For those ready to deepen this practice, our 10 Steps to Body and Mind Confidence guide offers a thoughtful companion for building a more grounded relationship with yourself - on Valentine's Day and every day after.
With warmth,
Olyinka Magazine
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