HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, but if you’re alone in the world and destined to be a spinster for the rest of your eternity, not to worry.

Science has confirmed that it’s actually way better for you to be single than in a relationship anyway, which iscomforting.

As well as the fact that you can eat share bags of Maltesers by yourself, wear ugly fleecey pyjamas ever night and always choose exactly what you want to watch on the telly, genuine scientific studies now reckon that you’ll be happier at work and more emotionally stable if you’re a single pringle.

Bella DePaulo, a scientist from the University of California, researched the topic for a 2016 investigationand found that those of us not in a relationship value meaningful work more than married people.

The single life also means that you’re probably better connected to your parents, siblings, friends, neighbours and co-workers, which is nice. See - there’s no big, empty, emotionless void in your heart after all.

“When people marry, they become more insular,” Dr DePaulo explains in her report.

Better still, if you’re a single lady AND an independent woman (how many Beyonce songs can we fit into a science-related story), you’re even better off. The science report also found that self-sufficient single people who were analysed for a lifelong study were less likely to experience negative emotions overall.

The opposite was true for married people, so marriage is basically a negative-emotion causing farse .*sprinkles rose petals*

If it’s any consolation on this cold, lonely Valentine’s Day, there are more singletons out there than ever before. DePaulo’s study points out that, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics, there were 124.6 million unmarried Americans in 2016 over the age of 16 - a little more than half. Rewind 40 years ago andjust 37% of the population was single. Hoorah, loneliness.

"More than ever before, [we] can pursue the ways of living that work best for them. There is no one blueprint for the good life," Dr DePaulo concludes. WORD.

"What matters is not what everyone else is doing or what other people think we should be doing, but whether we can find the places, the spaces and the people that fit who we really are and allow us to live our best lives."

Amen to that.

'Words by Lucy Wood.'

'Now that we've got that out of the way, you can watch these guys and gals try to guess what weird sex toys are for.'