Five Acceptable (and Unacceptable) Gifts for Single People This Valentine’s Day

Let’s be honest: Valentine’s Day is kind of annoying, single or not. If you’re in a relationship, you have to buy gifts, go out to dinner, put out, etc. If you’re single, you have to listen to all of your taken friends counting down the days until February 14 and blustering on about their big plans (read: Olive Garden, a bottle of André, and de rigueur copulation). However, I think it’s about time single people start using Valentine’s Day as a holiday to congratulate ourselves for not being in a relationship. Therefore, I’ve compiled a handy gift registry of viable gifts you can either gift to yourself or to your fellow single friends as we celebrate freedom from metaphorical romantic bondage, and laud the fact we’re free agents who still get to have fun and fuck whomever we want…which may, ironically, include some literal bondage.

Acceptable Gift: Booze

Booze is a holiday staple. What better day to get loaded than Valentine’s Day? Not only is booze acceptable in celebrating your highest of highs and providing companionship in your lowest of lows, it’s liquid tolerance for when we have to hear all about peoples’ stupid Valentine’s Day plans, not only leading up to the day, but inevitably for days afterwards too. Realistically, it should be your non-single friends buying you booze, because it’s often the only thing preventing us from slapping the shit out of them. (Note: pharmaceuticals are an acceptable substitution.)

Unacceptable Gift: A Snuggie. Snuggies are a gateway to Pajama Jeans and before you know it you’re being featured on an episode of Hoarders.

Acceptable Gift: A Ryan Gosling body pillow

Outside of the convenience of not having to be smothered by someone trying to cuddle with you or having to share your bed with another person, this body pillow allows you to tell people you slept with Ryan Gosling and/or humped his face without technically being a liar.

Unacceptable Gift: This ridiculous “kissing pillow.” It’s intended to improve your kissing skills, which in itself is creepy, but is made much worse when you realize it’s basically just a pillow with a built-in Fleshlight.

Acceptable Gift: Any chick flick where scorned lovers get revenge

Whether you’re single by choice or not, it’s nice to have a refresher to remind you exactly why it is you’re not dating. What better way to do that than to see sassy, empowered females seeking retribution by fucking over their conniving exes and coming out on top in the end? Don’t invest in anything too heavy, though, because, as aforementioned, there’s a high probability you’ll be soaked in enough booze to warrant staying 20 feet away from any open flame, so your mind will only be able to handle films that fall somewhere within the Cameron Diaz-Reese Witherspoon spectrum of comprehension.

Unacceptable Gift: Any Tyler Perry film, because Tyler Perry

Acceptable Gift: Sex

Ah, the joys of singledom. It means never feeling an obligation to have sex with anyone, which makes sex with casual partners so much more enjoyable. While your taken friends are busy going through the motions of a romantic evening, we singles are afforded the ability to skip past all of that bullshit and get straight to what matters: fucking. I will forgo tossed salads and doggy bags at a chain restaurant for salad tossing and doggy style in a sex swing any day.

Unacceptable Gift: STDs. Bragging about your wild Valentine’s Day sex is pointless if you end up at the free clinic with a bout of gonorrhea.

Acceptable: This 2014 calendar featuring nice, Jewish guys

It never hurts to set goals for yourself. L’chayim!

Unacceptable Gift: Anything emblazoned with cats