Instead of wallowing in what he didn't have, he wanted singles to be alone together.
"When you go through a breakup, you're depressed and you don't realize that other people are going through that, too," he says. "On birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, you get gifts for other people. But you never have a day where you're like: 'I'm getting a gift for myself.'"
So he picked October 1 for its zero's and one's and started selling Single's Day merchandise - hats, sweatshirts, coasters, greeting cards - out of the boot of his car. People liked the idea, he says, but it didn't gather much momentum.
Maybe unmarried Americans don't feel singled out enough to give the holiday a national push. Ravi Dhar, a professor of management and marketing at Yale University, where he directs the Center for Consumer Insights, thinks a singles day may have less appeal here because the United States is pretty individualistic already.
China, however, is more collectivist, he notes, so there might be more of a need to celebrate individuality there. In the United State, "people will be less receptive to the idea of a single's day," he says, "as that desire is already fulfilled and not as latent as in Chinese culture."
Lainer, however, is still selling the idea. He estimates that he's spent about $100,000(USD) promoting Single's Day in the past 10 years; he runs a Single's Day website, employs a social media specialist and hosts Single's Day parties.
The demographics are now in Lainer's favour - last year, for the first time, single Americans outnumbered married ones.
In 2012, New Zealand reached its lowest number of registered marriages in 12 years. According to Statistics NZ figures, last year saw a slight growth hitting just over 20,000 again.
While Lainer is no longer single himself (he has a wife and son) he still feels devoted to single Americans. It's like being a heavy kid, he says: "Even though I'm thinner now, you still have that overweight person in you."
Maybe all Lainer needs is a big retailer or two to latch on to the idea and run with it.
Marcie Merriman, a strategist at Ernst & Young, thinks there could be an appetite for a singles day - if it's done positively and not as a kind of pity party. The key, she says, is focusing on millennials and selling experiences, not things.
"It could be a complete heyday for service businesses like travel, tourism, restaurants, pampering, massage or nail salons," Merriman says. She could see people going out, getting a singles' day mani-pedi and then wanting to post about it on social media. Or a boutique hotel chain, an airline and maybe a big restaurant chain getting in on the action - brands that would represent fun, freedom and independence.
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