Walk next to people
Wherever you go throughout the day– whether it be to drown your lonely sorrows in a banana whip or to CVS to buy condoms to keep up the façade that you’ll be getting some tonight –pick someone on your route and walk at the exact same speed as them. If you’re feeling confident, you could test out the waters and walk with your hand in their back pocket. Everyone knows that’s what couples do, so fake it til you make it.
Pull a Macaulay Culkin (re: invest in cardboard cutouts)
If a 10 year old could convince two fully grown men that cardboard cutouts were real people, you can convince yourself the same thing for a night. You can finally surround yourself with your favorite politicians, actors and athletes without worrying about what circumstances caused JFK, Joseph Gordon–Levitt and Soren Thompson (2012 Olympic Fencing team member, you’re welcome) to all be in the same room together. Spend the night cozied up next to JFK by the fireplace––but maybe one of those Netflix fires because JFK is hella flammable at the moment.
Attempt to scare all the gross people on Tinder that you usually unmatch with
Distract yourself from being lonely by doing a service to the public and creeping out the people who normally make everyone else uncomfortable. Try to out–disgust the degenerate human being who offered to drink your bath water. However, it should be noted that you’re dealing with a sample size of people who think that saying you’re so beautiful that they’d like to be reincarnated as your child gives them a solid shot at getting laid. This is not a task for the faint–hearted.
Choose Valentine’s Day as the grand finale for The Roommate stunt you’ve been planning all year
Didn’t everyone have the same feeling of “Oh my god, I have to do this when I get to college!” after watching The Roommate? I know I did. So count on your roommate to have made Valentine’s day plans, spend the year turning into him or her to the point where the two of you are indistinguishable and then kill him/her. No advice yet on how to proceed from this one in days following Valentine’s Day, but your roommate’s probably pretty understanding.
Find someone more pathetic than you and stare at them
This may not help with the actual pangs of being alone, unwanted, unloved, undesirable, miserable and inadequate on Valentine’s day, but at least that person sucks more than you do. Plus, if you’re staring at them, you’re not technically alone, and it’s always better to be the less pathetic one in a pair so you have the upper hand. Unless you’re staring at them via Facebook, they’re probably just staring right back at you, loser.
