Ah, Valentine’s Day. A day for romance and magic, a day to be with your loved one, a day to be in love with the world. Or for the rest of us, a day to sit and mope, to feel lonely, be bitter at all the pheromones floating in the air and somehow missing us. Love sucks, doesn’t it?

Well, take some comfort. Though you may not have someone to cuddle with this Friday, you can still make it an interesting day. Here are some suggestions of things to do to lighten your mood: Purchase a ticket to an insipid date flick and have some fun. Be obnoxious during the movie, comment loudly on the bad acting and poke holes in the plot. During a tender moment, laugh out loud. When the lovebirds kiss, make loud sucking noises.

Polish your public speaking skills. Grab hold of whatever prominent forum you can and make a speech about how Valentine’s Day isn’t really a holiday so much as another excuse for various purveyors of promotional products to wheel out more junk to sell. Pink this, purple that, all sorts of trinkets and chocolate to somehow make your day more special. Yeah, right. Like Easter, Christmas, and Halloween, this holiday has been sold to the candy and toy companies.

Have some fun with couples. Take that box of condoms that you won’t be using and distribute them. Confront happy couples and make them feel really uncomfortable by lecturing them about safe sex and shoving a prophylactic in their faces. Or sit down near a couple and give them dirty looks until they go away.

Since you won’t have anyone to keep you warm, make a nice fire instead, using paraphernalia from past romances. Love notes and bad poetry make particularly good firestarters, and teddy bears are good for keeping the blaze going. Pictures don’t really feed the fire, but it sure is cool to watch them shrivel up in flame. While you’re sitting there all nice and toasty warm, remember: he/she never loved you anyway.

And if all else fails, go home and write a column about how much Valentine’s Day sucks and how to ruin it for everyone else since you can’t participate. That will definitely make you feel better.