GUEST COLUMN: "Activities for the unattached"

So the big day is here, and you don't have a sweetheart with whom to cuddle and blow $50 in honor of St. What's-His-Face. What are you going to do with yourself? Call a dating service? No, you'll end up with someone more appropriate for Halloween. Give up on romance altogether, curl up teary-eyed under your dresser, listening to acoustic Joni Mitchell albums and reading Sidney Sheldon novels? No, save your wallowing in self-pity for when you get this semester's grade report in the mail. Perhaps you should grab the nearest classmate (check for wedding rings first) and in a moment of spontaneous bravado ask him or her to be your Valentine? Not likely. The person may frankly inform you that he or she would sooner be love slave to Don Knotts (a pretty harsh blow for your eggshell ego). Or worse, the person might simply say, "OK, sure," and then walk off. Thus you have a valentine, but you're not quite sure what exactly that means. What, in truth, can one do when surrounded by icons of romance in every shop window, bombarded from every direction with the message that today is the day the whole world celebrates love? The whole world, that is, except for lowly undesirables such as yourself who can't even get a date with 100 bucks down at the docks. Cry not, lonely soul! I have generously devoted my time this week to composing this column in honor of all the forlorn, unattached romantics out there who wince at the coming of February 14. So anyone facing this predicament and looking for hollow consolation, read on and pick out your answer from the handful I've conjured up. The 5 Best Ways to Escape St. Valentine's Day Loneliness: 1. Travel to Fiji. If you cross the date line at exactly 12 a.m. on what would be the 14th on this side of the line and stay in Fiji for at least a day, you'll avoid the dreaded day altogether. And if you can't have a good time and forget your troubles in Fiji, you're beyond the reach of my crass advice completely. 2. Just call up your cousin, it never fails! Oh wait, I forgot. I'm not down South anymore. Scratch that. 3. Wait patiently until the day is over. You see, an amazing number of seemingly happy couples can't take the pressure of the one preordained day on which they have to be absolutely, perfectly happy and romantic with each other. As a result, there are a surprising number of break-ups on Valentine's Day. If you carefully scope out the least stable couples you know as you wait for the day to end, you can promptly step in to pick up the pieces on the 15th before they even get a chance to make up and get back together. It sounds a little bit shallow and duplicitous, but hey, maybe you'll be asked to appear on Ricki Lake. 4. Call any ex-partner with whom you had a rotten relationship and hopefully a bitter end. Preferably, you are still not on speaking terms. A quick spat punctuated with the slamming down of the phone should remind you that one can often find more tenderness in a rugby match than in romantic involvement. Plus, you may end up getting back together! Either way, you can't lose. 5. Now is the perfect time to come out to the world as an asexual. Then you can finally have a love relationship in which there are no communication problems. You never have to play calling games, and you always know how serious your partner is about the relationship. No more worries about birth control, though if you wish you may hand out cigars as you tell your friends that your beer gut is in fact the first stage of your mitosis. You can even go all out and send yourself a lovely FTD bouquet with an accompanying card that says something cute yet sharp, like "Be Your Own Damn Valentine." (This approach is best for those who are already schizophrenic and have no friends, for if you do have any they will most certainly have you institutionalized upon discovering this newfound romantic orientation.) There you have it. Five easy solutions to Valentine's Day depression. There is a bit more to say before I can end this column, for the sake of those of you who for some reason can't afford a trip to Fiji or already had a bitter break-up with yourself and can't go crawling back just to have a date this Wednesday (you'd never let yourself live it down). So you're alone on Valentine's Day. Why do you care? Just because everywhere you look there are cheesy cardboard hearts hanging in shop windows, half-priced boxes of chocolates ("Now only 80 percent pure lard!"), and buck-naked cherubs wielding crossbows and shooting people in the ass? You don't have to feel the weight of the romantic void today more than any other. Don't let the celebration of love obscure from your sight the true nature of what's being commemorated. Romance comes when it comes and goes when it goes; it is tender yet powerful, slow but overwhelming and it sure doesn't follow any schedules. When it really does arrive, it lasts a hell of a lot longer than one day. So quit moaning. Put down that pen; Chuck Woolery's never going to answer your letters anyway. Call your friends (those who aren't absorbed in this traditional arbitrary celebration) and go out together as conscientious objectors. Enjoy the companionship you should be appreciating everyday of the year. Now if you'll excuse me, myself and I have a plane to catch.