Some words are especially meaningful when you’re in a relationship: love, forever, I miss you, sorry, it’s okay. Other words have entirely different meanings when you’re alone. Here’s a handy translation guide to a few.
1. “Plus One”
When you’re single, “plus one” translates roughly to “friend you need to convince to go somewhere via bribery and threats” or “reason to panic and re-examine the state of your entire love life.”
2. “Single Meals”
Are these meals for people who have nobody to cuddle at night or is the grocery store trying to suggest the appropriate size of an individual person’s meal or both?
3. “Engaged”
Very into something. Entertained. Enthralled.
4. “Baby”
Actual infant child, not a term of endearment for anything but small animals.
5. “You Should Meet *Insert Name Of Person Here*”
Thing people say to you when they want you to have sex with one of their friends. Never professional. Always interwoven with innuendo and set-up, like a basket made of the fibers of well-wishes from friends who think you will die alone.
6. “Carpool Lane”
A place you shall not go, a lane of traffic that you stare into, wistfully, hoping that every single person using it is in an argument that leads to a break-up so that they know your idling commuter pain.
7. “Split”
A thing you do with all checks, because no one else is picking up your damn tab.
8. “Valentine’s Day”
For about a month you’ve endured roses and chocolates and heart-shaped things that magnified your loneliness. This is the culmination of it all, but luckily your favorite day, February 15th follows it. Clearance candy and 364 days until your solo-ness is exposed.
9. “Love”
Thing you express for objects that you enjoy using or putting on your body, like clothing or great shoes. Feeling you get when you look into a full refrigerator. What you say to your friends and family and pets. The special bond between you and your favorite protagonist.
10. “Cuddling”
Something you do with animals, drunk friends, and pillows. Something you kind of do with yourself when you cry, if you’re being honest. Something that always leads to hooking up when it is done with someone else, if you’re being really honest.
11. “Body Pillow”
They aren’t just a soft thing to throw on the bed, they’re inanimate companions.
Also, good memory foam won’t forget your anniversary.
12. “Pizza”
Not something you share. A cheesy, reheatable lover that can’t argue with or cheat on you, and worst case scenario can be improved with parmesan or peppers.
13. “Sick Day”
A day you spend alone, catching up on sleep and wondering why your Mom isn’t giving you soup.
14. “Texting”
A fun game, like an emotional sudoku. It’s truly an adventure stressing yourself out, overanalyzing texts and overthinking your responses. The best part is the ‘new text notification sound’ which signals new lives in this miserable game.
15. “Happy Hour”
The place you go to flirt with friends of friends of your co-workers and scope out potential new dates. Only to be reminded that everyone else goes to happy hour just to drink and talk about work…. after work.
16. “Working Out”
The thing you force yourself to keep doing because you’ve convinced yourself that surely a 6-pack is what great romances are made of.
17. “Status”
Dating? Talking? Hooking up? A word that you get asked about constantly, not an update from a friend on a feed.
18. “Instagram”
A place where you get to assume that every notification is potential flirtation. So-and-so liked FOUR of my photos? I wonder if So-and-so wants to grab dinner or like start a family? Never a place for a picture of you and one other person being cute, unless that person is your best friend and being cute is the two of you making gross faces over a pitcher.
19. “Dating”
Verb, not a noun. Something exhausting you do because you feel like you have to do it; something you do because, eventually, you want to only make out with one other human being who you enjoy being around.
20. “Date”
Literal day on a calendar.
21. “Netflix”
Your best friend and lover who is always ready and willing for you to waste copious amounts of time and never ever judges how much time you spend with them.
22. “Party”
“How many in your party?”
“ONE.”
23. “Going Out”
The tiresome, redundant thing you attempt at doing on some weekends because of F.O.M.O. That is, until you realize the beauty of J.O.M.O (Joy of Missing Out). But sometimes you still go to judge everyone who tries to find love at a dive bar while a Drake song is playing loudly enough to lose your hearing.
24. “Dance Floor”
The place you go by yourself after a couple of drinks in the hopes that someone cute joins you. (Someone creepy always joins you.)
25. “Single”
A thing that musicians drop that often contains lyrics your non-existent love life can’t necessarily relate to. The way you like your Kraft cheese. Also, your entire damn life.