How to Survive Your Weekends Alone (Without Losing It)

Maybe you’ve gotten yourself a frighteningly ugly haircut. Broke and bored, you let a friend mow into your head with a pair of sewing scissors, only because she was gorgeous herself, and that gave you hope (now I understand celebrity endorsements). So presently, you’re hibernating until your hair stops looking like a starfish, or until you find a wig that doesn’t feel like it’s meant for your vagina.

Maybe you’re a survival-savvy introvert, and have successfully lied to 4 different people about why you can’t be with any of them, for any weekend, ever — because that’s when your loving, long-distance, (and lol) absolutely imaginary boyfriend comes visiting!

Maybe you’re shy, socially anxious. You’ve been the Weird Person Who Talks To Nobody for so long, people have stopped asking you to hang out with them altogether; now, you identify as the Sad Person Nobody Talks To.

Maybe you’re an extrovert, but you’ve managed to pick fights with all 17 of your BFFs at the same time. So now you’re fidgeting in the silence of your room, tempted to go on an apology spree.

Or maybe you’re just new to the city!

There can be many, many stories behind weekends spent alone.

In the 4 years that I’ve been living on my own now, I’ve achieved the feat of spending 208 weekends alone, because of one or the other of the above reasons, while still remaining quite happy and completely sane (yay!).

Based on this mind-blowing success, and brought to you by my desire for validation, here’s an honest, practical, and needlessly illustrated guide so that you, too, can wade through your weekends, alone.

Step 1 : Sing, dance, run ’em errands.

It’s Friday night. Almost everyone is out at some bar, wasting themselves for fun today, a hangover tomorrow, and embarrassments for life.

This means that you have your house all to yourself! A wondrous chance to :-

1. Sing as loudly as you want, without shyly shutting up when your voice begins to squeak, or when you belt out made-up lyrics.
2. Dance as sluttily or as sloppily as you’d like, without worrying if your boobs are jiggling too much, or if people are accusing you of manliness.

In fact, you can combine 1) or 2) with any chores that you have pending — such as cleaning your room, washing your clothes, bathing your body in actual soap instead of perfume, removing a week’s worth of prickly food crumbles from your bed, etc.

This way, you’ll feel warmly self-pleased, and also keep the next two days fully free for the good stuff!

Step 2 : Settle down to sleep, etc. with a nice book.

Or, if you’re not into reading nice books, settle down with one hand on 50 Shades of Grey, and the other in the area that, as Chandler said, God only meant to be treated nicely.

Once you start feeling drowsy (of course), prepare yourself for a royal Friday night sleep. Fix yourself a plump pillow, spread out a clean bedsheet, utter a heartfelt prayer to #TGIF, and sleep away like a happy little baby!

Step 3 : Get your ass the fuck out of your house on Saturday.

Yeah sorry, but the aggression is needed.

When you’re alone on a weekend, it’s unbelievably easy to give in to the sexy appeals of your butt (keep lying on the bed baby, I’m sinking deeper and deeper inside, and ahhh! it feels so good, sooo goood..), and ignore the screams of your brain (if you don’t get up now you’ll spend 3 days breathing in farts SO FOR THE LOVE OF OXYGEN GET UP, GET UP, GET OUT!).

Toughen up. Listen to the wise guy. Get out, and :-

1. Take a long bus ride.

Besides being great for power naps (you can’t sleep for more than 10 minutes amidst the jolts) and melancholic window-gazing feels, bus rides also make for the best kind of me-time.

You get to be alone in your thoughts, and yet, there is the reassuring presence of other people nearby. And the beauty part? These people don’t give two hoots about you! So you can be alone, friendless, hideously dirty or salivating in your power nap — without having to feel an ounce of self-consciousness about it.

2. Go for a movie.

Watching a movie is one of the 2 fun things (the other being taking a bus ride) that you can do alone in public, without making everyone in a 10 KM radius fire pitiful/judgy glances at you. Morever, it’s good fun. Do it!

3. Gorge on a great meal.

Now that you’ve run out of things to do without feeling self-conscious, fuck the self-consciousness, gather your guts, and do whatever it is you want to.

Yes, it’s going to make you cry into your pillow the first 4–5 weekends, but in no time, you’ll have developed the kind of steely courage only the most luxurious of public nose-pickers possess. And once you have said courage, I’d recommend using it for more fulfilling things — for example, how about an obnoxiously hearty meal to cherry-top your Saturday outing?

Go ahead — stuff yourself until you’re breathless and sweaty and unbuttoned all the way from your boobs to your crotch (but scale it down if you suffer from any serious problems, such as diabetes, obesity, lack of fart-control, etc.).

Step 4 : Netflix & chill (& regret)

Home sweet home! Bed soft bed! Butt happy butt!

Change into a garment at least 3 times the size your grandmother wears. Arrange for 6 hours’ supply of your favorite beverage, and at least 2 explosive shits worth of pizza to go with it. Kickstart the bingefest.

Once it’s 4 AM, give your deadening soul a break.

Shove your laptop under the bed, drop the hope of notification, keep your phone away, and lie down.

Step 5 : Weep a little.

Remember the tinge of pain you felt in the theatre, in the restaurant, in the bus, while cracking up at the funniest joke on Netflix?

Watch it grow into a full, festering wound, and weep a little.

Let your bravery crumble for a while. Admit it to yourself in the harsh, inescapable, looming loneliness of the night — it’s fun to do things on your own, but sometimes, sometimes you do wish you had someone nice and friendly to share your experiences with. To enrapture with stories, to ignite into laughter, to smother with affection, to reach out for a pat, a hug, a conversation.

Fall into the pit of your past, and break your heart as you stare at the pile of waste lying in there — a pile of nauseating waste, of rotting memories, of broken bits and pieces from friendships that you thought would last a lifetime. Scramble through the waste and weep a little.

For a while, let yourself be more than just pride and angsty determination to survive everything. Be weak and needy and pathetic for a while, and weep a lot into your poor plump pillow. It’s okay.

Step 6 : Get back up.

Once your pillow is sufficiently drenched in tears and snot, stop rubbing your face into it and get up.

Blow your nose, splash yourself with some cold water, and lie down again. Repeat to yourself your favorite motivational quote (or prayer, or any other delusion that works for you — or just count sheep) until you doze off.

Step 7 : Try harder at happiness.

(There, you have it. The ever-elusive secret to happiness, on lonely weekends and otherwise. This is it : keep working hard on keeping yourself happy).

Make the most of the silver lining. Be freakishly productive!

Count your blessings. Treasure and talk to the people you do have in your life.

Take baby steps towards solving the mess that made you weep last night. Slowly, but surely, you’ll get past it.

And until then, make the most of what you have — your wonderful self, and a deliciously ample weekend ahead :-)

Cheers!