*Disclaimer: This is a work of satire. You decide which parts.*

With the spring dance right around the corner and the failures of Valentine’s day behind us, anticipation is ripe.

What happens if I’m rejected? Do people know that I smell like onions? Will all of DV shame and ridicule me relentlessly for continuing to be single for another year?

It’s a cold, cold world, soldier! Eyes up and stay sharp! Here are tips to navigate the dangerous battlefield of love and how to ask someone out.

1) Be upfront

The biggest mistake most people make in asking someone out is that they’re scared to go big or go home. “Can we hang out sometime?” “Do you want to link?” Don’t beat around the bush, just ask them: “Would you want to go out with me?” When you and the other person know what they’re getting into, there’s clear expectations set, and people appreciate that. Being honest and clear with yourself and with the other person about what you want is the start of healthy relationships.

2) Love yourself

The key to a healthy relationship is healthy individuals. If you’re not confident in yourself, how can you expect anyone to love you? You got to have confidence. Deny that reality staring at you in the mirror and ignore what everyone says about your acne or tangled hair. Before anyone else can love your greasy face and dirty fingernails, you have to love them yourself!

3) Get used to rejection

The reality is that most people aren’t for you and most people don’t want you anyways. That’s okay! Being rejected is a part of life, especially for lonely, desperate people like you. Embrace your failed state of being, it’s who you are!

4) Reality is an illusion

If people don’t like you for who you are, why be you? Why not pretend to be a professional ballroom dancer instead? Why not tell people you work for Goldman Sachs and have a penthouse suite? Who’s to say what reality is anyways? All I know is that I have fifteen girls at my door  begging for Dmitri and his suave, Russian accent.

5) Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss

The best way to get someone to love you is to manipulate them! Once they fall for your puppy love, lead them on a never-ending breadcrumb trail of denial, ghosting and gaslighting until all they know is that they need you and you don’t need them. Make sure that they love you and that they know you don’t. Works like a charm every time!

6) Being single is okay!

Truthfully, no advice can get you a date. People fall in and out of love because they’re right or wrong for each other, and being confident won’t change the fact that you are who you are, and that people will love or hate you for that. So before you go looking for a relationship, changing who you are or being more sociopathic, remember: you’re beautiful and don’t need anyone else to prove that. But to be clear, I definitely have a girlfriend; she’s really cool and pretty and you just haven’t seen her because she goes to a different school.