Eight ways to reject your admirers this Valentine’s

Faking your death to avoid a date might seem drastic, but sometimes it’s all you can do

1 year ago | UPDATED 1 year ago

You’re enjoying Valentine’s on your own, carefully preparing for Annoy Squidward Day on the 15th. Suddenly, a mariachi band starts playing. Maybe confetti is thrown into your face. And that one person who’s been crushing on you all year asks you to marry them. We’ve all been there.

Maybe you haven’t been there, but it’s good to have a backup plan, just in case. Here are eight excuses to deflect any doting devotees this Valentine’s Day.

1) Fake your death

This one takes a bit of preparation. Each Valentine’s Day, simply hire a professional actor to follow you around, hiding in ominous places with a sniper rifle. If an undesired admirer does pop the question, then give your assassin friend the signal and collapse onto the floor. Assuming they haven’t been arrested for following someone around with a sniper rifle, they can pretend to have killed you. With a bit of luck, your fancier will immediately forget you ever existed, and after a few months in hiding, you can re-emerge, blissfully single as ever!

2) Pretend to be your identical twin

Lots of people have an identical twin, so it will come as no surprise to your suitor when you reveal you have no idea who they are, and that the person they’ve been unsuccessfully wooing all these years was only a distant relative.

To really sell this, you could even photoshop some images of you and your imaginary doppelganger performing magic tricks, travelling around Paris, or going to weddings. That will be sure to clear up any confusion.

I didn’t say they had to be good. Image credits: David McIntosh

3) Tell them you traded your firstborn to a vampire

The previous suggestions may have been a little hard to believe, especially for someone who’s about to get their heart broken. While they’re not often discussed, otherworldly bargains are a very common thing. If anything, we should be trying to normalise healthy discussions about the difficulties that come from mystical curses, and this excuse may go some way to doing that.

Simply explain that as an infant, you traded your future child for the uncanny ability to have people you don’t like fall in love with you (hint hint). Tearfully tell your infatuated idoliser that you cannot get married, because you could not bear for them to experience the pain of having their child carried away by a supernatural being. While you would love to marry a random person who proposed to you with a mariachi band, you would only be able to break this poor person’s heart.

4) Tell them you don’t date people outside of your accommodation

Dating within your accommodation (or flatcest as it is affectionately known) is certainly controversial, but it has its benefits. Well, not really, but you can pretend to think it does, and that you made the dramatic decision to limit your dating pool to only those people in your staircase. You’re not going to get any healthy relationships this way, but you can get out of a potentially awkward situation.

Even your own college can be romantic if you’re desperate enough. Image credits: David McIntosh

5) Join a monastery

Nuns and monks aren’t allowed to be married, so this is an ideal excuse to salvage an embarrassing situation. Why not go the whole way and actually join a convent? A disciplined life of servitude and adoration sounds a bit like marriage anyway, but at least you get to do it in the company of good friends.

6) Tell them you’re studying Natural Sciences

This should solve all of your problems.

7) Explain that you don’t exist and never did

This next idea is a surefire way to let someone down, without hurting them in the process. If someone is delusional enough to want to marry you, it may be possible to convince them that your entire existence is merely their desperate fantasy, a non-reality conjured by their romantic neediness. Obviously, this is news you’ll want to break gently – it’s always overwhelming when we realise we’ve fabricated an entire love interest – but if you’re clever, this will put an end to all the awkward half-smiles and weird notes this person has been giving you.

8) Let them down gently

This isn’t something I’ve ever tried, but I’ve been told that you could just tell the person that you don’t want to marry them. Tell them you’re flattered. Tell them they’re a fantastic person. Tell them that you’re sure they’ll find someone soon, but it’s not you. And enjoy the band! Mariachi is an excellent music style and it’s a shame it’s been so dramatically associated with wedding proposals in Western culture.

Have a nice Valentine’s day everyone!

Featured image credits: Keira Quirk