During college, I studied abroad in Madrid and had one of the best summers of my life. I spent mornings in lectures on Spanish literature, afternoons milling around Madrid’s best museums, and evenings drinking good wine with friends and stuffing myself with tapas.

Throughout this summer, I had some amazing experiences with Spaniards - making friends, watching soccer (futbol) games, and partying. This is undoubtedly where my fixation on Mediterranean men started. My last night of clubbing with my summer crush still lives rent free in my head. (Imagine a hot Spanish man, easily 6’3” leaning over and saying “let’s take a picture together” and then kissing you as soon as the shutter snapped. Heaven!)

I bring all of this up because I also added a holiday to my annual repertoire that summer: the feast day of San Antonio de la Florida. The church in Madrid hosts a celebration for single women because San Antonio was apparently affiliated with seamstresses (the OG single ladies). Unmarried women can come to the church on the feast day, buy a packet of sewing needles to throw into the church’s fountain, then stick their hands into this fountain full of needles. However many needles are stuck to your palm when you pull it out is the number of suitors you will have for the year.

Back in 2006, I did partake (see below), albeit under sanitized supervision by my nursing student friend, and came out with one lone needle. I’m not sure how accurate the needle-suitor matching system is, as I made out with at least 3 people the following year and had no boyfriends, but it was fun and silly. I loved that there was a place to celebrate single women, even within the confines of the Catholic Church. I have been meaning to organize a celebration of my own ever since.

After many years of forgetting what date it was or celebrating with a solo night or a date, I decided to throw a party for the single ladies in my life this year. A lil house party just to let the gals in my life know I love them and support them in their pursuit of love (if they are actively pursuing or not). It was a ton of fun. We ate tortilla Espanola and talked politics and dating apps until late in the night, as bottles of Cava and mezcal were drained in the background.

In the last decade or so, other holidays for singles and single ladies have come to forefront. Singles Day in China (November 11th). Galentine’s Day (Feb 13th) and Singles Awareness Day (Feb 15th). Korean Black Day (April 14th). National Singles Day (Sept 27th), part of National Singles Week. Some of these are contrived (e.g. Galentine’s Day, from the TV show ‘Parks and Recreation’) or driven by capitalism (looking at you, Chinese Singles Day!), but some are genuinely in the spirit of celebrating different kinds of lives and life stages.

So even though there are often very real economic and social forces working against single women, celebrating us as a group is still worth doing. Feliz Fiesta de San Antonio de la Florida (June 13th) and hope you do something fun with and for the single ladies in your life.

Singles Holidays

Fathers and Daughters

It’s My Favorite Season