Feeling sad, single and alone? Sometimes the solution is to buy yourself a load of treats, take yourself on a date and just deeply enjoy your own company, safe in the knowledge that you don’t have to cater to anyone else’s needs or desires. Or if you’re feeling particularly single, you could head off to China, where Singles Day is a thing. It started in 1993, when students at Nanjing University wanted to make a day where single people would be encourage to treat themselves.
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Ever since, it’s meant to be there to give single people the opportunity to feel free and happy about themselves just as they are, with no compromises. As well as eating four youtiao, which are basically deep-fried pastries, to signify the two elevens when you write out the date in numbers, they eat a baozi, which is like a big puffy steamed bun filled with meat or vegetables, if you're that way inclined. That's to signify the dot in the middle of 11.11. The four ones in the date are meant to signify how you are the only 'one' and you are your own 'one.'
Other traditions include going out to karaoke and restaurants with single mates and buying loads of presents for yourself. Sounds good, right?
Except that, just like Valentine’s Day has become a lot about shopping, Singles Day has been co-opted by Alibaba, a mahoosive retail website.
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Though, reports the BBC, the intentions of Singles Day have always been to treat oneself, many spendy singles have a problem with Alibaba’s re-brand of it (they’ve nicknamed it ‘Double 11’ since 2009). Because now couples are getting in on the act. One Weibo user posted this complaint: ‘November 11 used to be “Singles' Day.” Then it became the Shopping Day, and now it's Couples' Shopping Day. Looking across the globe and over the years, there's never really been a day dedicated to single people.’
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Alibaba has already made $7 billion (£4.4 billion) from this year’s Singles’ Day sales. One thing to note is it’s a bit like Makro as it doubles up as a wholesaler.
And after a brief peruse of the site, it’s full of things that you might like to enjoy should you choose to celebrate Singles Day. But when the minimum order of ‘China Factory Wholesale Powerful Waterproof Silicone Women Sex Toy 7 Speed Double G Spot’ is 10 pieces, we might have to give it a miss for now. We mean, we did find a couple of sex toys that were a minimum order of 1, but it's 'Used'. Um...
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.