You’re single and you should be thankful — and not just because it’s the Thanksgiving season. You save enormous amounts of time and money by not dating. After all, why would you spend a Saturday night out on a date when you can stay at home alone, staring at the wall of your dark room and dreading the sunrise? Yes, Thanksgiving can be a wonderful celebration of your singlehood. There’s no awkwardness about bringing someone home to meet your parents, and you have no reason to watch your waistline either. Enjoy the holiday even further with these tips.
1. Invite other singles to your dinner. This may seem counterintuitive. Why would an uncompromising individual like yourself need any company at all? Well, do it for selfish reasons if for nothing else. Having other singles around will help you gauge how relatively pathetic your situation is. For example, you might find a crazy cat lady to sup with. You can tell yourself, “At least I still have my personal hygiene,” while you ignore the mustard stains on your jeans that you bought at Ralphs. You can also look at the cat lady and think, “At least I don’t live through my pets,” as your hamster runs endlessly in his wheel at home, mocking your Sisyphean life.
2. Host your own parade. You’ll probably find that the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade doesn’t quite satisfy what you want from the holiday. From what I understand from watching this parade, New Yorkers like spending a lot of money on utterly pointless cartoon balloons. Money is far too valuable to you, and everything must have a purpose. That’s why you should stage a small parade through your house, reading your resume through a bullhorn and enlisting the younger members of your extended family to dance in your honor. All that praise will definitely mask your vices and bitter loneliness.
3. Pretend like you’re totally fine around your family. Family members are great, right? They voice political views you thought didn’t exist outside of cable news networks, and they fill your spam box with chain emails. At Thanksgiving, you actually have to talk to them in real life. That can be problematic, as their questions may become uncomfortable. “So, have you been seeing anyone lately?” “What do you do on the weekends for fun?” “If you go to school in California, why are you so pale?” Cleverly avoid answering any of these questions by turning them right around. “How’s your significant other?” “I hear you’ve joined a book club!” “You look tan. Have you traveled anywhere recently?” Because, at the end of the day, you can always avoid talking about yourself by getting others to talk about themselves.
4. Watch some football and root for the referees. You may have to bond with the men in your family by pretending to like football. Ordinarily, you can cheer for the team with the more powerful mascot. (Who would win in a fight between the Bears and those Green Bay meat packers? I wonder.) But this arbitrary team loyalty could run you aground of the fans in your living room. Instead, follow the referees on the field and observe their calls. Pick your favorite and try to trace his influence. Does he seem to sway the decision of the head ref? Just make sure you only cheer for the refs when everyone else does, otherwise you’d be worse off than rooting for the Packers.
5. Toss around the football — by yourself. After watching full-time paid professionals play football, men like to pretend they can play, too. This can be problematic for you, because the only spiral you’re familiar with is the colorful doodle you drew on your hand. Avoid all the awkwardness of feeling pigskin slap your cold bony forearms by tossing the football to yourself. This may seem logistically daunting, but that’s never stopped you from taking group activities and making them horribly isolating.
6. Eat for two. If you can’t have a partner to love, you might as well make up for it by gorging yourself. Besides taking double portions of everything, take two plates and two sets of silverware. That way while you’re eating, you can pretend to be that special someone you’ll never actually meet. Laugh at all your own jokes and play footsy with yourself. When you start getting strange looks, declare people just don’t understand your love and retreat to your room where you can cry on your own shoulder.
7. Tell everyone how thankful you are for being single. There’s nothing wrong with you the way you are. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with anything. That’s why you should widely publicize how great it is to be single. This may seem to fly in the face of No. 3’s suggestion to gloss over personal questions, but that’s just because you’re thinking too assertively. Telling everyone how thankful you are for being single should be done through sniped comments. When your sister starts going on about her husband, just cut her off: “Yeah, it must be nice to have to discuss every decision.” You’re your own, and you have the freedom to do whatever you want. Why do you even need someone else by your side? Right?
