A definitive list of everyone having a worse Valentine’s Day than you

Winter is a cruel season. The coats are too hot, the outdoors too cold. The sky is nothing but an unrelenting sea of gray and the temperature doesn’t bear thinking about. For a few lucky people, who have someone special near and dear to them to love and to cherish, Winter’s unremitting bitterness is broken up by a day of love.

They will go for dinner, whisper sweet nothings and make carefree love even though it’s a Tuesday. But not everyone has someone. Not everybody will be lucky enough to feel the warm embrace of another human. Spare a thought for those who dread V-Day. Who shudder at the thought of balloons and heart-shaped chocolates, the true unsung heroes of this truly cliché day.

The office secretary who gets excited every time the deliveryman comes by with flowers, then tries to hide her crestfallen face every time they aren’t for her.

The girl who lied and told her boyfriend she didn’t want anything for Valentine’s Day and now has to act like she isn’t upset when he did not, in fact, get her anything for Valentine’s Day.

The guy who listened to Creep by Radiohead 94 times on Spotify today.

All balloon salesmen.

The people who use memes to hide their feelings.

The teen boy who will message his crush that he likes him, then say ‘My friend took my phone and sent you that’ when she doesn’t feel the same.

The second grader who has to purposefully give her crush the shittiest Valentine in the box so he doesn’t know she likes him.

Loveless couples who get put on the stadium’s Kiss Cam.

The person who threw an anti-Valentine’s Day party but everyone invited RSVP’d ‘maybe.’

The dates of people who say, ‘Should we be naughty?’ before opening the dessert menu.

Anyone in an Olive Garden.

The girl who wore a yellow rose behind her ear so her online date would recognize her but apparently he never did as it’s been two hours and he’s still not there.

The waiters at every mid-range steakhouse in the midwest who are forced to recite the frankly mediocre specials to men in light wash jeans courting the same girls they’ve been fucking since eighth grade.

“Try the New York strip, it was bought, prepared and cooked by a man who’s never left the state.”

Strippers at a warehouse club near the airport who have to entertain the men who are delaying going home to spend time with their wives.

Kids who have to stay home with a babysitter while their mom goes to dinner with her ‘special friend, Ron’

Kids downstairs listening to their parents’ annual act of sexual congress.

The girl whose mailbox is empty apart from a single red envelope ‘from your secret admirer.’

Thanks again, mom.

Melania Trump

Men on business in hotel rooms.

“Do you have any that look like my ex-wife?”

The girl who will spend the entire evening taking screenshots of her ex’s new girlfriend so her friends can roast her in the group chat.

Photographers who are hired to take fake candid proposal pictures in Central Park

Turns out her “Wow I can’t believe it’s finally happened” face looks exactly the same as her “bridal glow” face and “I didn’t expect this at all!” face.

The guy who is totally over her and is just going to chill in front of the game tonight with a few brewskis, it’s fine, seriously, not a big deal, okay?

People who Instagram things like ‘PIZZA IS MY VALENTINE’ to hide their own insecurity about being single since senior prom.

The girl who has posted since freshman year in high school that she is “literally so done” with guys then is surprised when she has literally no dates.

The girl who RT’d the ‘Galentine’s Day’ clip from Parks and Rec on February 13

“This day is our day, right ladies?!”

The girl who sells handmade Valentine’s Day cards on Etsy

The guy who sees through all this

“Valentine’s Day is just another excuse for the capitalist pigs at gift card stores and supermarkets to squeeze another dime out of you under the pretext of this social construct we call ‘love,’” he tells 4Chan.

The girl who has been dropping hints about getting married for weeks, all of which go over the head of her oblivious boyfriend.

She has been a bridesmaid four times in the last year.

Middle-aged men who have been dragged to the cinema to watch 50 Shades Darker in a vain attempt to ‘spice things up’ as their relationship reaches its nadir

You could have called it quits in January and saved the money.

The overly-excited guy

He’s so sorry. This never usually happens. On Valentine’s, of all nights.