By: William Holloway
- Tell yourself that you don’t really care.
This holiday sucks, or at least that’s what you tell yourself. It was invented by greeting card companies! Sure, buddy, we’ve all used that at least once before. As long as you pretend you don’t care, you don’t have to confront anything
- Bury yourself in work.
Who has time for love anyway? Time to be productive! Bonus points if it’s boring and gives you an excuse as to why you’re so miserable.
- Do something fun to distract yourself.
Unable to get over our insecurities? Don’t think about them whatsoever! Just do whatever you can to make yourself feel better. Play a video game, watch a movie or a show, listen to some music. Then remember that a large portion of music and movies revolve around romance and change your mind on something halfway through.
- Be jealous of those more fortunate.
Carrying over from the last idea, make yourself feel bad by thinking about greener pastures. Maybe the movie you were just watching, maybe scrolling through social media… whatever it takes to remind you of what you don’t have. You may think that this will just make you feel worse… yes. It will.
- Eat.
You have food, don’t you? Well, why not inhale all of it? Just shove it down your throat, whatever it takes to not think about anything at all. “But I’m not hungry!” you may say. Yes, you are, hungry for affection. This is the next best thing.
- Promise to make a change that will never happen.
Sick of going through this routine every year? Well, how about thinking about not doing that? Are you actually going to make that change? Of course not! But you’ll feel better about your future by just thinking about it!
- Do some honest self-reflection about how you feel about this.
Maybe all this isn’t good advice, maybe you want to confront your problems head-on, or not purposely make yourself miserable. Maybe we shouldn’t compare ourselves to an idealized version of the world, everyone’s circumstances are different, aren’t they? Am I projecting throughout this entire article? Why am I doing this…
- Dream about what you would be doing if someone cared about you.
…who cares about all that! How about continuing to be miserable by instead harboring jealousy toward yourself somehow instead of someone else? Briefly embody your inner screenwriter to plan every detail and become way invested in this version of your life.
- Talk to or hang out with your friends.
Are the people you associate with just as sad as you? How about getting together to bask in your collective woes? Can’t bring yourself to do even that? With the wonders of modern technology now you can just send them a half-hearted message that will somehow spiral into an hour-long conversation.
- Romanticize your melancholic solitude.
If nothing so far has helped (or hindered) your mood to an acceptable level, there is one last trick to dealing with your angst. Planning this all from the beginning! Or at least acting like you did. By treating your perpetual isolation as a trait you have cultivated intentionally, you can brush off any and all feelings you may have regarding your social status. You may have run out of people to romanticize (even yourself weirdly enough), but you can still turn your perspective on your whole life around!
(WARNING: Do not try these at home, and if you do, just don’t tell anyone where you got them from.)