What To Do If You're Not A Fan Of Valentine's Day

What To Do If You're Not A Fan Of Valentine's Day

If you've noticed the picture to the left, then you know exactly how I feel every Valentine's Day, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. There's so much pinkness and love in the air that I'm constantly afraid I'm going to get diabetes just for being near this event. And the problem is that you can't escape it: everywhere you turn there are fluffy bears holding "I love you" hearts, radio shows, TV shows and social media practically oozing Valentine's Day.

If you're one of the people who isn't a fan of Valentine's Day then read on. I'll tell you a couple of tricks that will help you keep this holiday out of your Facebook, offer a few better ways to pass your time and even show you some cool stuff that will keep those Cupid worshipers out of your hair:

Keep Valentine's Day out of your Facebook news feed

I know what you're thinking of: I don't want to see the posts about Valentine's Day, so I'll stay offline on February 14th and the problem is solved. Unfortunately it's not as easy as it seems because, for some reason, people start talking about it starting from January and keep on going until it's almost March. Furthermore, going outside doesn't exactly help either, so you need better solutions:

KillSwitch

• KillSwitch - exes and crushes are always a problem when the Valentine's day comes, as their posts will undoubtedly make you feel sad and lonely. KillSwitch is a neat app that hides all the content (that you created) related to your ex. It doesn't do anything as drastic as completely deleting the contact from your list or blocking all their communications, but ensures you have no self-created reasons to think of them. The problem is that this app doesn't stop future updates from your ex and in order to get rid of those, you need to do it yourself. Here's the solution: go to the person's Facebook page and press on the "Following" button. If it changed to "Follow", it worked and their updates will no longer appear in your news feed. (Reversing the process works the same way). This app works on iOS as well as Android and can be downloaded via this link.

Facebook Post Filter

• Facebook Post Filter - this Google Chrome extension helps you hide news that contains specific words, so you can easily use it to filter out the Valentine's Day-related content. Here's what you need to do: follow this link, download and install the extension. Once that's done, go to Chrome's Settings, click on Extensions and when you find Facebook Post Filter click on Options (right underneath it). Now you see a new tab explaining you how to make use of the tool. In the filtering section, the box in the right lets you assign a name to the rule you are about to create, so let's name it anti-valentine. The box on the left is where you enter the words that you don't want to see. In order to input multiple words, you have to use a syntax that looks like this: \bvday\b|\bvalentine\b|\bvalentines\b (vday, valentine and valentines are the words blocked out in this example).

Social Fixer

• Social Fixer For Facebook - this browser extension can be found here and works with Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari. After you install it, you will notice that your Facebook page now has a wrench icon on its top toolbar. Click the icon and go to the Filtering section to manage the list of words that you no longer wish to see. You need to input the content that you want to block in the column marked "Other" (in the box labeled Matching Text). To add more words at once you have to write them like this: /valentines|vday|14|14 feb|feb 14|valentine's day|valentine/i (the blocked content in this case is valentines, vday, 14, 14 feb, feb 14, valentine's day and valentine). Additionally, you can create a new tab dedicated to the feeds that got blocked. To do so, simply check the box labeled Move To in the Actions column and enter the name that the tab should have.

Best ways to spend time on Valentine's Day

Of course you can't just sit there mopping this entire Saturday, waiting for the dreaded V Day to pass. Since this is an IT-related website I'm going to show you a few apps that could make things better:

• Let's start with showing those who suffocate us with Valentine's Day messages what we really think about their holiday. And is there a better way to do that than make up a greeting card? Zazzle is a free app that works on Android as well as on iOS and provides its users with a cool collection of cards that contain messages like I hope Cupid dies a horrible death or Love stinks. I know, i know: "hatters gonna hate...' that's true, but with this app you can hate in style.
• Another great way to spend your time is to go to a concert or a party. Bandsintown is also a free app that can be used on Android and iOS. This application lets you add your favorite bands or artists and notifies you if they are having a concert in your vicinity. In case you're into the kind music that's not really appropriate for smooching and hands holding, you are sure to get away from Valentine's Day grasp.
• If you have an iPhone and you can no longer stand all those love songs you will probably get a kick out of the app called Anti-Valentine's Day Sounds. The language in it is a bit strong, so I wouldn't exactly recommend it to little kids, but if you have a sense of humor and a little bit of a dark side, then this app is definitely worth checking out.
• If you've had a couple of drinks and feeling a bit vindictive, don't do something you might regret next morning. Instead of acting out in ways that may disturb your life, why not doing inside a cute little app called Cupid's Carnage. This application lets you take revenge on the photos of your ex and, even though it won't make you feel much better, at least it will amuse you. This app works exclusively on iOS.
• And let's not forget about the best way to spend Valentine's Day (if you're old enough to drink legally, that is). As you can probably tell from its title, 8,500+ Drink & Cocktail Recipes is an app that offers an impressive collection of ways to spend an evening. This free iOS application comes with detailed information and pictures, so you can't miss when mixing your beverages.

And since I promised you something fun in the beginning of the article, I'm going to show you a couple of t-shirts that I love to see during this time of the year:

Happy Grumpy Cat

Happy

Love is in the air

Happy Singles Awareness Day everybody!