But what if I did have a boyfriend? Candlelit dinner dates are nice and all, but I have a few better ideas for what my significant other would do for me for V-Day if, you know, he were real.
So take notes, dream boyfriend Michael Cera and any other guys harboring secret desires to date me. These are the gestures you have seven days to plan.
1. Help me come up with a fake engagement story so I can trick the salespeople at BHLDN into thinking I have a legitimate reason for a bridal gown appointment. Not because I want to get married. Just because I want to put their pretty dresses on my body and it seems like I could convince them more successfully to let me do this if I could tell them how my beau and I got engaged and show them lots of nice selfies of the two of us. I would get around the engagement ring hurdle by pretending I don't believe in them, which I don't, unless they're this.
2. Buy me a print by the girl who played Lavender Brown in Harry Potter who's now a cartoonist. Because I'm obsessed with her. He would know I'm obsessed with her without me telling him because my hypothetical boyfriend is a psychic. But also, if you can't predict that I would be obsessed with a Harry Potter actress turned hipster cartoonist, do you know me at all?
3. Buy me lots of chocolate things, but not because it's Valentine's Day, just because I like chocolate. Have I mentioned chocolate enough in this post? It's possible I'm on an extremely dangerous sugar high from the box of candy that accompanied that meme from my mother. Could someone go ahead and call a doctor just in case?
4. Help me pounce on the 10 AM drop time for Lady Gaga tickets on Monday to make sure that, come hell or high water, I will be at that concert.
4B. Sign a contract binding him to drive me to the aforementioned Lady Gaga concert even if we have broken up by that point, because it is in Boston, I am not driving in Boston, and if you have loved me at any point in your life, you are obligated in perpetuity to help me avoid driving.
5. Not just agree to but, in fact, freely suggest a V-Day movie marathon of charming British rom-coms starring young Hugh Grant and/or of Baz Luhrmann's entire oeuvre.
6. Drink my homemade wine smoothies with me without complaint.
7. Reorganize my sweater drawer for me. Note: If anyone who is not hypothetical would like to come and do this for me, please, be my guest.
8. Memorize and perform a medley of my favorite works from female YouTube slam poets, because this would be hilarious.
9. Alternatively, write a book report on Rebecca Traister's All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of the Independent Nation. Though I may just make this the essay portion of the "So You Want to Date Sarah Cahalan — Good Luck With That" application packet. TBD.
10. Get me a book deal for the side-splitting collection of essays that our relationship will inevitably inspire. (In addition to being a psychic, my hypothetical boyfriend is incredibly well-connected in the literary world.)
11. Present me with a series of exquisitely wrapped gift boxes. They don't have to have any gifts in them. I just want him to prove himself by way of gift wrap.
12. Take me to the Chinese restaurant down by the Home Depot to finally prove or disprove the rumor I've heard that Yee Dynasty has the hottest karaoke nights in the Granite State.
13. Acquire a time-turner so the two of us can travel back through history and engage in some kind of wacky shenanigan that cements Barry and Uncle Joe in the White House for the rest of time.
14. Promise me that, if he ever does propose, it will go down exactly like this.
Happy disinterred martyr's day, everyone! <3
