How to Be Alone on Valentine’s Day
1) Start referencing David Brooks columns in conversation. It doesn’t even matter if your take on his writing is positive or negative. Just the fact that you read Brooks is enough of a deterrent. (Bonus points for working Tom Friedman in too.)
2) Tell a man that Woody Allen is guilty of child molestation because he married his wife’s daughter.
3) Tell a woman that Woody Allen is innocent of all charges because Mia Farrow is a crazy bitch who brainwashed her daughter and reference that Robert Weide article.
4) Tell anyone who has a working heart and brain that Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death was preventable and/or stupid.
5) Send an unsolicited dick pic to someone you’re only sort of seeing.
6) Obsessively comment on a website’s Facebook. Insult all the women writers by saying things like they should be serving coffee, or that they should shove glass up their butts.
7) Be Alex Rodriguez.
8) Have a painting of yourself as a centaur hanging over your bed. (Alright, so this is kind of the same thing as just being Alex Rodriguez, but we firmly believe in keeping this fact about Rodriguez in constant circulation.)
9) Make a list of all the reasons New York is terrible, and use them to explain to anyone who will listen why you’re leaving the city.
10) Make a list of all the reasons New York is wonderful, and use them to explain to anyone who will listen why you’re staying in the city.
11) Look at your phone. Don’t stop looking at it. Have you checked your email, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter? Have you played every game you have on there? Have you played them all again? Keep looking at your phone. Never stop looking at your phone.
12) Take selfie after selfie after selfie. Take some more. Take all of them at home, preferably in front of one of those wavy Ikea mirrors. Make sure to post them across every single social media platform you’re on.
13) Forward chain emails and/or BuzzFeed quizzes to everyone you know.
14) Start leaving voicemails. Really long voicemails.
15) No, but really. Strike up a conversation about Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. It’s what everyone wants to talk about right now.
And so now you’re alone. You’re alone on Valentine’s Day. Lucky. If you require some sort of activity, though, I’d have to recommend you watch The Lady Eve, which is playing at BAM as part of the ongoing VENGEANCE IS HERS series. Barbara Stanwyck is, after all, both a screen goddess and a Brooklynite. Just make sure to see it alone, because no companion will possibly measure up to Ms. Stanwyck, and as you exit BAM into what I’d imagine will be the cold night air, remember that Stanwyck spent most of her adult life unpartnered. So, yes, you’re alone. But in your loneliness, you’re in pretty good company. The best, even. Happy Valentine’s Day.
Follow Kristin Iversen on twitter @kmiversen