Down with Love: A V-Day Guide for the Single and Cynical

Nothing says "I love you" like bringing your date to a strip club, but it's also a fine place to stop by with your friends, or alone, so long as you bring a gang of crisp Washingtons with you. The all-you-can-eat-for-five-bucks buffet is Fridays only--but no worries, there's always plenty of fresh meat available.

If there's anything that'll distract you from your lack of love, it's belting out cheesy pop songs at this dimly lit Upper Market karaoke bar. With cheap drinks and an encyclopedic catalog of songs, it's a popular destination for both serious songbirds and lovelorn lushes, and you can be sure you won't find any couples canoodling just to spite you here.

Dudes: The undisputed bar-game capital of San Francisco, this divey bar's got pool, darts, the Big Buck Hunter arcade game, shuffleboard, board games and, amazingly, skeeball. It's like Chuck E. Cheese for grown men, with $2 Tecates and hot dogs--in other words, the kind of place where a man without a girlfriend can feel at home.

Because eating with your hands is fun and almost never socially acceptable. This friendly NoPa Ethiopian restaurant serves injera and curries family-style with discounts for groups, so everyone digs in hands-first and gets equally messy. You'll have no problem getting a big table when everyone else wants a two-top.

Ragingly skeezy, this bar is themed after the Kozy Kar vans of the '70s (see "Dazed and Confused" for reference) and is outfitted with waterbeds, loaded with cheap hooch and generally the least romantic place imaginable. Let the couples have their candelight--lone rangers with forget all about their lack of lovelife amidst the strobes, fog and lecherous lushes of this Polk Street bar.

The standard remedy for V-Day-related lovesickness is a pint of the most high-fat, chocolatey ice cream your corner store has on hand, but if you're going to put on five pounds, you might as well do it right. Stop by the Mission's "it" ice cream shop for flavors like bourbon-cornflake, pepper or more traditional (but all exrtremely rich) flavors, all of them delicious enough to distract you from your crushing singlehood.