Oh, Valentine’s Day. Oh, what horrid person decided to dedicate an entire 24 hours to making the self-esteem of every single person plummet exponentially? Whether you’re newly single or perpetually single (and you have the Taylor Swift playlists to prove it), it’s still agonizing to watch your fellow friends excitedly explain their planned romantic endeavors for the day, forcing you to realize just how lonely your Feb. 14 is going to be. Maybe your plans for the day fall somewhere along the lines of watching a Lifetime movie and finishing the entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s while awash in self pity. Or conversely, perhaps you were planning on using the ever-so-romantic Tinder as a quick fix to finding your Valentine of choice the day of. So instead of sinking to those great depths, let your trustworthy and caring friends at the Clog lend you a hand. We’ve put together a little guide for you to follow, so you won’t be stuck listening to that Celine Dion song all night. Follow this militantly and you surely will be in for the most memorable Valentine’s Day of your life.

Jan. 30 — Feb. 2

Designate target. Peruse your lectures for anyone somewhat attractive — your standards can’t be too high, after all. Hunt down your friends for an extremely detailed list of all the people they know who are single. Facebook stalk extensively. The desperation should really start kicking you into overdrive and fueling your manic search for a date. You’re two weeks away from THE day, after all. Make an Excel sheet of all the possible candidates ranked by looks and perceived or imagined personality traits. Yes, that is absolutely necessary.

Feb. 3

Now that you have your special person in mind, you’ll want to get to know him or her better, or maybe you even just want to make your existence known to him. This is where our secret weapon comes in: pretend you’re a writer for The Daily Californian. Tell him or her you’re working on an article and need to interview people for it. Be vague, very vague, about what the article is about. If he pushes, tell him it’s a secret, and his knowledge of the topic would be an impediment to the process. All he or she needs to know is that he just needs to answer a couple of questions, and the interview must be done at your place.

Feb. 6

Conduct the interview today. Lay out an assortment of baked goods, tea and coffee to impress him or her. Say you made all of it, even though you just bought it from Trader Joe’s. Everyone loves a baker. Ask her a series of deeply intimate and personal questions. You’ll know more about him or her in 30 minutes than your friends know about their significant others of two years. Here’s some possible questions: Do children and animals trust you? Are you a passionate lover? Has anyone ever described you as cold and withholding? Do you fear descending into the dark abyss otherwise known as death? Hopefully, from his or her answers to the questions you’ve compiled, you’ll find out if he’s a decent human being. You only have to like him enough to spend a couple of hours with him.

Feb. 9

Say you need some follow-up questions for the interview. This will instigate another hangout that we will call a “pseudo-date.” Tell him or her you should “meet for coffee.” It should be blatantly obvious to her that this is a date. Why would you ever ask a platonic friend to share a caffeinated beverage with you? Make sure you come prepared. A thorough search of all of his or her social media accounts should yield a detailed list of hobbies, likes, dislikes, friends and family. Pretend to like everything he likes. Don’t be obvious about it, though. Just casually mention you happen to like the band that only people from his hometown know about it. You just happened to stumble upon it on Bandcamp last night.

Feb. 11

Weasel your way into getting him or her to meet your friends. Tell your friends that your happiness rests on this going well, so they must talk only about your positive attributes and any possible heroic actions you’ve done recently. Embellishment and creativity is encouraged. Any embarrassing stories are off the table. He or she surely can’t know about the time you laughed so hard that you peed your pants in the Nordstrom shoe department.

Feb. 13

This is the day that you ask him or her to spend Valentine’s Day with you. Don’t be nervous. He should basically be worshipping you now with a tiny shrine he hides from his roommate. Of course he’ll be overjoyed to be spending the day with wonderful and lovely you. If, by some strange happening, he or she actually does not accept your offer, tell her you have tuberculosis and this is your last Valentine’s Day, and wouldn’t it be a great tragedy to spend it alone? Why tuberculosis? It certainly is the most romantic of all the great maladies, isn’t it?

Feb. 14

You have won. Congratulations, you are not alone. Instead, you are riding on his or her Vespa off into the San Franciscan sunset to have a picnic at Ocean Beach and chase seagulls, or whatever people who are stupidly happy and in-love do. She showers you with all the love and affection you could have ever wanted. Just think about all the single people out there today and laugh at their misfortune. They just weren’t quite as deceptive and manipulative as you. Goodness, what a wonderful way to start a relationship. Eh, wait a couple of years to tell the truth. By then, it’ll just be something to mention in passing.

Image Sources: N. Clifford, Darryl Snow, Antonio Roberts, How I See Life, Stephan Rosger, Jesse Vaughan, Whitney Sharp, pierpeter under Creative Commons.

Contact Nora Harhen at nharhen@dailycal.org.