Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley said that ‘the beginning is always today’ but for those of us who better know that life truly begins when you successfully enter a relationship. Your life has not mattered up until this point and all your past accomplishments have added up to nothing. Congratulations if you have scored a first date because this is where your life truly begins.

Going out

If you want to go see a movie or attend an event in the city, do not ask a friend or reach out to someone in the hope of making a new one. Reserve any and all plans for you and your date only. When your friend suggests you choose some plans for dates and keep other plans to healthily balance relationships with other people in your life, do you listen? No, you don’t.

Finances

Grab your piggy bank and hide it in an even deeper corner of your cupboard. See if you can hide it in between your second grade costume for the school play where you played a leaf on a tree and all the ugly sweaters you received as presents from your relatives which you’ll never ever wear but you can’t throw away because you’re not heartless. In fact, see if you can push this piggy bank so far back into your closet that it reaches Narnia because it no longer exists.

The only option for you now is to wait patiently for someone to come along and buy you that outfit, take you out to get that mani/pedi or treat you to ice cream with sprinkles on top. Because if Donna and Tom Haverford from ‘Parks and Rec’ has taught us anything it’s to ‘Be Treated By Others!’

Self improvement

Banish all mirrors from your house. You can donate them to charity, resell them or just drop them from your window hoping it doesn’t knock a person out or damage property before it reaches the ground. Now sit tight and wait for a person to tell you how beautiful you naturally are. 

Travelling

In your mind you have a huge list of places you’re dying to go to but for some reason all of your plans revolve around checking into XYZ airport with a significant other. For people from more conservative families, “Biyer por bor ke niye ghurba” may be what is preached but for the rest who have the option, you could as well join hands together and toss travelling with friends, cousins or solo off the list as well. 

Now that you have realised the many reasons why staying in a relationship is your only shot to finding real fulfillment and joy in life, get to work.  Do a whole ritual in the graveyard in the middle of the night, sacrifice a leprechaun, stand in open places where you’re likely to get hit by cupid’s arrow – whatever it takes. You now have one mission and one mission only in life.