Christensen: Avoid the usual V-Day mistakes

Yes, I’m a hearts-and-Cupid baby. Since I was born so close to Feb. 14 (Feb. 9 to be exact),… Yes, I’m a hearts-and-Cupid baby. Since I was born so close to Feb. 14 (Feb. 9 to be exact), I’m usually too distracted by birthday cards and leftover cake to have the old chocolate/carnation woes.

But despite my casual attitude toward Saint Valentine, there are those out there who manage to make my meaningless day a little less awesome every year. Dear readers, please heed my call: This Valentine’s Day, show me that you care. Don’t be a d**che.

Of course, no one tries to be. Nine out of 10 cases of d**chebaggery are accidental. Yes, I made that number up. I’m not a scientist.

Anyway, there is no denying that it happens, and on Valentine’s Day, accidental d**chebaggery takes one of the following forms:

The Whiny Singleton: These are the sad, lonely people who think Valentine’s Day is the day to go all woe-is-me on the world. But you know what? This is not about you. It’s not a day to miss your ex-boyfriend, because he was a dumb joke. It’s not a day to lament how alone you are.

I’m not a man-hater, and I’m not against love or anything. I believe that when served in small, rational doses, love is great. But I also believe that being single is pretty kick-butt too.

It’s like a second childhood, when nobody expects much of anything from you. Except this time you can actually do whatever you want, and you can do it for yourself. If you get dressed up, it’s for you — and you aren’t waiting on someone special to notice, because you’ve already winked at yourself in the mirror. At parties, you can dance to that “Single Ladies” song. (Do people still do that? I’ve been out of touch.)

Anyway, the list of benefits goes on: You can wear that Hello Kitty underwear you’ve had since middle school, and no one will know. You can flirt with strangers. At the end of the night, you can come home and climb into bed with the only things you’ve loved through it all: chips, a bowl of bean dip and your “Mad Men” DVDs. And you can dribble that bean dip all over yourself.

(Side note: You can do all these things when you are dating someone too, but they usually come with complex emotions like guilt and shame.)

Anyway, it’s much easier to achieve happiness on Feb. 14 when you aren’t relying on someone else to rock your world. So don’t be sad. And don’t bring me down. It’s easy to forget, but you’re not the only single person out there.

The Smarmy Couple: If couples didn’t bore me, I would be part of one. Look, I’m glad you and your significant other are happy. I’m glad your love is, like, real. I’m glad that on Valentine’s Day he played Boyz II Men while treating you right.

But I only care so much. You know why? Because like absolutely every human being on planet Earth, I’m a little conceited. I’m not sorry. The story of your fabulous romantic day has absolutely nothing to do with me. So give me the abridged version, but for heaven’s sakes, save the details for your daydreams.

And above all, do not ask me, “So what did you do yesterday?” with that insinuating tone. You know perfectly well where I was: bean dip, bed.

The Lazy Boyfriend: So your girlfriend says she hates Valentine’s Day. She says it’s a holiday invented by greeting-card and candy companies to make an extra buck. Blah blah blah and so forth.

Look, deep down, your girlfriend still wants you to do something nice for her. Because secretly, we love it when boys do nice things. That doesn’t mean you have to show up at her apartment with a boom box or anything, but just buy her a flower. If you don’t have the money, find some red paper and fold an origami rose. It’s easy to make someone’s day.

Because trust me, if you don’t do anything, she will be disappointed. Maybe just a little bit. But she won’t tell you. She’ll tell someone like me — her single friend, the innocent player on the sidelines, who’s just trying to keep away from all this crazy love business. And we single friends are going to have to sit there and comfort her and try to pick apart how your mind works and what your motives are. We are going to have to analyze you in ways you haven’t even analyzed yourself. And this sucks, because while we like you well enough — you bought us pizza that one time — we really don’t want to spend this much time thinking about anyone, let alone you. We had to pause “Mad Men” to do this, just when Don Draper was getting ready to be all sexy. We would like to get back to it. So please, spare your girlfriend’s single friends, and do something just an eensy bit special.

Fabulous readers, I hope you all have a wonderful Feb. 14, however you choose to spend it. Personally, I’ll be at the bank, using that birthday money to balance out my 21st’s bar tab.

And before I forget, here’s my card. It isn’t much, but it’s handmade. It says: I love you, with a million scrawled X’s and O’s.

Write Caitlyn at cac141@pitt.edu.