How To Have An Awesome Single Valentine’s Day

Watch a rom-com. This may seem counterintuitive, but there’s nothing better than sprawling out on the futon in your underwear, popping open some pinot and LOLing at the unrealistic plot and floundering lovesick characters of any given romantic comedy. Hollywood, let’s be serious: you expect me to believe that this conventionally attractive but otherwise unremarkable woman who wears cardigans can turn this overgrown bad boy with a motorcycle and no checking account into a responsible family man? In less than a week? Shake your head in disbelief and swig your wine, feeling superior.

Go skydiving. Or do some other random and exciting thing that no one does in February. Why spend the day pasted to a couch eating chocolate with your boyfriend, horizontally expanding and overheated, when you can be freefalling from the stratosphere and feeling (briefly) on top of the world? This shouldn’t even be a question. On the off chance that you’re still feeling nebulous and lonely, however, and are in need of further distraction, you can always preoccupy yourself with the possibility that your parachute won’t open. This leaves no time to think about your ex.

Have a meaningless hookup. There is no better way to give Monogamy Awareness Day the finger than by having a meaningless hookup. It’s a win-win situation: if it’s a one-time thing, you just had sex on Valentine’s Day and not everyone can say as much. If you actually end up dating that person, you have a unique and adorable beginning to the Story of Us. Win-win.

Take your best friend on a date. Assuming your best friend is single. If they’re not, find another close friend who is. Go out with them and have a good old-fashioned friend date, like Carrie and Miranda in the first Sex and the City movie (before Carrie gets mad at Miranda for basically ruining her marriage and walks out on the bill).

Love yourself. You could either a) feel lonely and miserable because no one currently wants to have sex with you, or b) realize it’s totally okay that no one wants to have sex with you because it means you can do it any way you want, in any position, without worrying about how your ass looks from that angle. Go with b). Throw caution to the wind and do it with the lights on in a feather boa. Finish at your own pace and be grateful for not having to make anyone a sandwich or talk about what’s on your mind.

Do anything you effing want. Because you can. This is the day that celebrates being in a relationship, so celebrate not being in one while you still can. You’re single. You don’t have to freak out about buying the perfect gift or busting your ass in the kitchen over a beautiful crème brulee, especially because you have the cooking skills of an ADD fifth grader. Just relax and do you. For all you know, next year you could be dating someone who loves morning sex, or jogging, or some other abnormal early morning activity, and you will have to do that with them on Valentine’s Day instead of leisurely pouring yourself a bourbon hot chocolate, lighting a cigarette and watching The Office. Or whatever.