1. Have sex with someone who doesn’t care about you. Have sex with someone because they don’t care about you. Tell yourself that this is in order to prove some sort of point along the lines of the idea that you don’t care about them either, or something. Decide that it’s not really important, and you’ll probably figure it out afterwords when you achieve that feeling of accomplishment.
2. When that feeling doesn’t come, repeat step one. Keep doing it, as often as possible. Only do it after midnight and some alcohol consumption, and put in extra effort to make the sex mediocre.
3. Realize after some time that they’re the only person you’ve had sex with in a long while. Begin to notice that you have a lot in common with that person. Talk to them about their life, and respond with detail when they ask about yours.
4. Develop the notion that you may like this person. Tell them, post-coitus, in the most round-about, obscure way. Allow it to change nothing. Even though this step is extremely important, you must act as if it never happened.
5. Eventually, you will find yourself wishing you were dating this person. When that day comes, handle it by telling them you don’t want to see them anymore.
6. Decide to be friends. Get drunk and forget. Get sober and apologize. Listen to each other, do things together fully clothed, and meet each other’s friends.
7. Realize that this person is a real, actual, original person with a life and feelings and individuality. Feel bad about taking advantage of this person. Deprive yourself of things you enjoy, like sex, coffee, chicken nuggets, or certain genres of music. Convince yourself that this is enough to make you a better, more desirable person.
8. Get drunk and realize it’s not.
9. Have a conversation with this person, whom you chose so long ago in step one, that makes you smile a lot. Let them vent to you about their dating troubles. Let them tell you multiple times how happy they are that you are their friend. Wonder why, dear God, you can’t be more to them than that. Remind yourself in a grand epiphany that it’s the same reason you had sex with them in the first place.
10. And repeat.
