(To whomsoever it may concern: Ideas expressed in the post have been exaggerated for various reasons. Please don't send me to therapy.)
1. Tune in to a television show on a culinary competition conducted in another continent. Spend hours watching contestants whip up dishes you're never going to eat with ingredients you've never seen before. Focus your undivided attention on following their unfamiliar accent only to realize that they keep lapsing into a language you don't know. Salivate at the piece of art served on a plate. Feel the familiar stirring of hunger in the pit of your stomach. Remember that your refrigerator is empty and that you have the cooking skills of a handicapped panda anyway. Continue watching the show till the end of the day or till you starve, whichever comes first.
2. Go online and discover that a teen celebrity your age is engaged to be married. Remind yourself that the rich and famous live in an alternative reality so their lifestyle isn’t an appropriate parameter for your existence. Sink into a depression regardless and prod at old wounds as you ponder about what possibly went wrong. Didn’t you try hard enough or did you try too hard? Why is another 19 year old on the threshold of marriage when you haven’t even been in a real relationship yet? Are you romantically repulsive? Are you doomed to eternal spinsterhood? Are you the poster girl for the Forever Alone meme you saw on 9gag?
3. Talk to random strangers on the internet. Shyly concede when they compliment your flattering profile picture as you celebrate inwardly with an evil chuckle. Thank your camera flash for obliterating the jagged ends of your eyebrows and the monstrous pimple on your forehead. Secretly hope for a special connection with every individual who can hold a conversation for longer than 5 minutes in grammatically correct English and pretend that this doesn’t reek of desperation. Hide your disappointment when they disconnect without warning. Console yourself that perhaps they have an unstable internet connection, perhaps they forgot the chicken in the oven or maybe they were instant messaging in the middle of a meeting when their boss caught them and now they're sitting on a pavement somewhere with a box of office supplies and nowhere to go.
4. Roll over and play dead. Conveniently forget that you do the exact same thing every night for at least eight hours. Avoid coffee like the plague until you slip into a black hole of dreamless unconsciousness and suddenly, it won't matter anymore that you've accomplished a vat load of nothing all day.
After all, this is exactly what the holidays are for.
