The single's guide to re-emerging from Valentine’s Day lush and fabulous again

Is this the first Valentine’s Day alone since your break-up? Suzanne Harrington has a light-hearted survival guide to help you make it through the day.       

So you’ve been dumped. Maybe you saw it coming, or maybe, like me, it came out of the blue. In my case, by text, after two years of being told I was the love of someone’s life.

Oh dear. And now February 14th is bearing down on us like a runaway truck full of hearts and flowers, so that if we don’t leap from its path, we will be squashed flat all over again.

Yikes! What can we do, fellow broken-hearted?

Like dealing with most horrid stuff, it’s all about perspective.

Obviously, if you were dumped last week, you will still be at the screaming and sobbing stage, in which case there is little to be done other than scream or sob (preferably not down the phone to whoever was insane enough to dump you).

If this stage has passed, however, you will need to engage in some mental preparation — because even if you dismiss Valentine’s Day as a gigantic Hallmark and Interflora marketing cash in, it will still be in your face all day long.

All month long. The shops have been shouting about it since January.

One more foil-wrapped heart-shaped chocolate lollipop, and you could seriously lose your shit at the till in Marks & Spencer.

Being broken hearted on Valentine’s Day is like being poked in the eye with the thorns of a dozen red roses.

Unless, that is, you Valentine-proof yourself.

Read on, for a cheery guide on how not to spend the day crying in the loo with old photos and a bottle of gin.

Before the 14th

First, get your head around the fact that this year, there will be none of the usual Valentine’s Day hoop-la, unless your mum misguidedly sends you an anonymous card like when you were at primary school.

There will be no flowers, no chocolates, no surprise tickets to Paris, no hot-air balloon rides, no champagne in bed, no diamonds, no love poems, no romantic dinners, no date night.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Think of yourself as the Glastonbury Festival when it takes a year out for its fields to recover from all the trampling, so that soon you will re-emerge lush and fabulous again.

Get your head around the idea that on this Valentine’s Day, you will wake up alone, and what’s more, you will go to bed alone too, unless you follow Mae West’s advice and decide that the best way to get over someone is to get on top of someone else.

Morning

Don’t bother checking your phone.

Seriously. Put it down.

In fact, for the rest of the day, impose a total social media blackout.

The last thing you want is to be engulfed by smoochiness.

Be happy for the Instagram smoochers, the Facebook lovers, but remember you don’t actually need to look at any of them.

This year, Valentine’s falls on a Sunday, probably the day you and your ex always did loads of fun things together, which makes 2016’s Valentine’s extra sadistic.

Be prepared.

Ideally, wake up somewhere else — another country would be good, or failing that, another city. Nothing like a mini-break somewhere new and interesting to refocus the mind. (This can include Mae West’s idea, if for whatever tedious reason you cannot magic up a weekend in Istanbul — although doing a Mae West while under the influence of break-up drinking is never a good idea, as you may wake up screaming, this time in horror).

If waking up more home alone than Macauly Culkin, have your friends on standby, and have a plan in place.

Otherwise you will stay under the duvet obsessing, which is injurious and not advised.

At no point should you consider what much of the internet suggests as a good idea in these circumstances — an aromatherapy bubble bath.

No! Step away from the scented candles! Put down the bath oil!

Otherwise you will quite literally be wallowing in it. Today is a day of action and distraction, not contemplating your lost love alone in a bathroom.

Get dressed and get out.

Daytime

Make yourself sweat. Not writhing in a tortured agony of what your ex might be up to today, or if they are missing you even a teeny bit (they’re not, which is why the fool dumped you in the first place).

Your mind will keep wanting to drag you to hellish places, and it’s your job to turn your thinking around.

This may be as difficult as steering an oil tanker in a hurricane, but think of the reframing process as heartbreak CBT.

Do not, for any reason, turn to self-help books – they will just make things worse.

There are only two reasons your ex broke up with you — you have issues, and need therapy, or your ex has issues, and needs therapy. If it’s you, book the therapy.

If it’s your ex, think of all the therapy bills you’ll be saving.

Meanwhile, go for a run. A walk. A yoga class. A game of football, tennis, squash, a brisk country hike (not alone, or you will be crying in a hedge by lunchtime).

Outdoors is better — nature is restorative — but anything that makes you hot and sweaty (Mae West option notwithstanding) will release endorphins, which will raise your spirits and clear your thinking. A bit.

I’m not promising miracles, obviously.

Evening

Avoid restaurants like a mass outbreak of salmonella has just been reported.

Even the local sandwich shop will be cashing in on the whole Valentine’s Menu thing, and you definitely don’t want to see any kissy couples playing footsie as they spoon feed each other heart-shaped raspberry mousse.

Nor do you want to go anywhere near a cinema — it will be like Noah’s Ark in there, crammed with cuddly couples.

Run away!

Oh, and avoid all shop windows as you’re at it.

One more heart-filled window display and you’ll be arrested for criminal damage.

Throw a party. This kills many Valentine’s birds with one great big Valentine’s stone (bad metaphor — you definitely don’t want to be thinking about killing anything today, not in your volatile state).

Or if a party seems daunting, then at least a gathering.

Invite your friends around in the evening.

Theme it — My Bloody Valentine, for instance.

You could come as Dead Amy Winehouse (my personal heartbreak costume of choice) and mime along to Back To Black with mascara running down your face.

Theme the food — instead of a heart shaped cake, you could have a broken heart shaped cake.

Laugh in the face of it all. If anyone remarks how you are making lemonade out of lemons, punch them.

Although preparing food for your friends is free occupational therapy, and far more rewarding. It’s a win-win.

Night

Well done.

You have made it through the day without doing anything that could result in a restraining order. You can now luxuriate in glorious autonomy – which is heartbreak CBT for “go to bed alone” – full of satisfaction that you did not allow Valentine’s Day to turn you into a howling basket case.

No exes were drunk-called, no friends feel they are on suicide watch.

You have done Heart-Broken Valentine’s with dignity and aplomb.

You are truly splendid.