Valentine’s Day is a polarizing 24-hours for most people. You either have a significant other to shower in cards, candles, chocolates and roses, as you enjoy an amusing romantic comedy or possibly the charming atmosphere of an intimate restaurant, or you take two bottles of red wine to the face to temper the sting of loneliness. But stop dwelling on the reasons you think you’re flying solo on February 14 because science says it’s beneficial.

A recent study published in September suggests that the biological purpose of experiencing loneliness is to motivate an individual to seek, or repair, social relationships “that are needed for our health and well-being as well as for the survival of our genes.”

Humans are social creatures, after all. Few people, if any, enjoy the feeling being ostracized and when examined through an evolutionary lens, cohesion amongst groups of people helped bolster the chance of survival.

The study, titled “Evolutionary mechanisms for loneliness,” likens the feeling of loneliness to hunger, in that they act as natural trigger that prompts a person to alter their current behavioral state.

Reads the text, “We have posited that the perceived social isolation that motivates one to attend to and to seek connection with others also leads to the expression of other features on which natural selection may operate.”

Translation: Loneliness might feel like a downward spiral of depression the depths of which seem unfathomable and unending. But, as time spans, it drives the person to seek out normative and healthy social structures while inadvertently relieving this pain.

It also regulates “the ventral striatum, a key component of the mesolimbic dopamine system,” or rather the crucial neurons in reward processing and learning, also aiding in the motivational process.

Science.

So there you have it, lonely hearts. Embrace the isolation, live the seclusion and for goodness’ sake, don’t end up like the people in the video below. You’ll be better off in the end.

Happy Valentine’s day, Boston!