Don't worry, St. Valentine. I'm feeling nice.

Well, it's nearly Valentine's Day again.

Eight years ago, I helped co-found a Single Girls' Valentine's Dinner with some friends. It was meant to take our minds off of being single, spend time with great friends, eat entirely too much, and flirt shamelessly with even remotely attractive waiters. Eight years later, I haven't missed a single one. Awesome. I admit - I probably shouldn't have attended one of them. However, as a co-founder, I found ways to dodge the rules and went anyway (plus, we weren't officially together and never actually were).

Don't worry. This post isn't going to be an all-out assault on Valentine's Day. I'm not one of those 'stupid holiday, sell cards and flowers, hate my life' girls. Hating Valentine's Day because you're single is like hating Ryan Seacrest for upsetting results on American Idol. It's not his fault. You're looking for a scapegoat. Still not happy with the outcome.

At any rate, I've been contemplating my single-ness for...eight years...and I've decided that being single for eight years is actually a lot like eating from the same gallon of cookie dough ice cream for eight years. Let me explain.

At first, you're content - happy even. The vanilla of your life is filled with chunks of gooey-deliciousness and you're completely happy with those chunks of excitement. You experiment with different things - in a cone, in a bowl, whipped cream, hot fudge, that Reese's hardshell stuff, sprinkles. You love the freedom you have to experiment with different toppings. No one can tell you you can't.

Then, as time goes on, you start to get a little sick of the cookie dough ice cream. You want something bigger, better. Something more serious. You're ready for new things, bigger commitments. In order to forget your ice cream (or in this extended metaphor, your status as a single girl), you try to cram your gallon of ice cream into the deepest, darkest, furthest corner of your mind *cough* freezer. Unfortunately, freezers are small and gallons of ice cream continue to dominate your sub-conscious.

You go to the frozen foods section of your local grocery. You flirt with the idea of having something serious, something for dinner. A bag of tator tots, a frozen pineapple and ham pizza (in this metaphor, these represent another facet of your life - a focus on a career, family, friends). However, you always go back to the nagging feeling you have in your gut. Nothing else will fit in the freezer. The ice cream takes up way too much space. So, you continue to dwell on it.

Unfortunately, in this metaphor, you can't even throw the ice cream away. It's not your choice. You want a new flavor, but none of the flavors seem to agree with your stomach. So, you're stuck - sobbing on the couch, eating the ice cream directly out of the carton. You begin to realize that ice cream is too cold. You want something warm, something adventurous, something - dare I say, sensual in your life. Sometimes, you share the ice cream with your other single friends. Then, suddenly, they've moved on to cake - wedding cake, to be exact. But, you're alone...eating your ice cream and blogging about celebrities.

Eventually, the ice cream has been in the freezer for so long that it begins to grow mold. This, of course, is in direct proportion with the amount of hair on the single girl's legs. What's the point, right? Why shave in February if you're single? In fact, science has given us an equation to explain this phenomenon:

(¼)# of years single = # of inches of leg hair

...and there you have it. So, I've been eating from the same metaphorical gallon of cookie dough ice cream for eight years...and it hasn't tasted good in a long time.

Everyone I know tells me there is a perfect guy out there for me. They tell me to keep waiting. They tell me I deserve the best and that it will work out in the end. I believed them for a long time, but my patience is starting to wear thin. I'm tired of being alone...and at this point, if my perfect man does finally show up, I hope he's lactose intolerant.

By the way, my leg hair isn't two inches long. Don't worry.