The Inferno: The Nine Circles of Valentine’s Day

Until recently, I had never been empathetic to the disease known as celebrating Valentine’s Day alone (symptoms of which include depression, overeating, and whining about February 14^th on any and all forms of social media). When you’ve ridden solo for nearly two decades’ worth of Valentine’s festivities, Singles Awareness Day eventually becomes a peaceful, practically meditative experience; instead of cry-sterbating and eating a tub of ice cream at my own personal pity party each year, I enjoyed a joyful day of solitude filled with a slew of rewarding personal activities (Okay, they’re the exact same activities as a pity party, minus the crying). While images of “love” and “happy couples” plagued me at work or school, I could safely journey home to escape any reminders of how depressingly sucky counter-culture it is to be single.

Never understood why Dante was such a big Static Shock fan (via toonbarn.com)

Well, that was until this year, for when I moved in with my roommate, I also unwittingly moved in with her boyfriend and all their couple-y bliss.

Maroon 5: The Ultimate Orgasm Enabler

This band is determined to sex you up at least seven different way from Sunday

Thursday, June 30th seemed like such a normal day. I woke up with a digestive system full of well-fermented anguish, after hours of dreaming about talking yaks. I proceeded to head to my workplace – the inspiration for Dante’s Divine Comedy – and by the time the late afternoon rolled around, I had nothing to anticipate for the evening other than a ham and turkey sandwich and several hours of internet stalking. It was then, at this point of despair, that I received a call from a friend – a call that would change my life. It consisted of two questions:

Friend: “Are you busy tonight?”

Me: “Well, not unless getting my time for Sporcle’s “Capitals of the World” quiz below 4 minutes somehow qualifies as busy. Why?”

Friend: Do you want to come to the Maroon 5 concert with me?

Me: [3 to 5 minutes of unfiltered expletives]

So there it was. My average evening of memorizing the hometowns of everyone in the Northwestern University Class of 2015 Facebook group had suddenly turned into what I knew would be a night more than worthy of a Sherman Ave review.

In a word, Maroon 5 was: SO FUCKING AMAZING I CAN’T EVEN COMPREHEND IT THEY WERE EXCELLENT LIVE PERFORMERS TOO BUT THEIR MUSIC IS JUST SO FUCKING GOOD I LOVE THEIR STYLE SO MUCH BECAUSE THEY VERY EFFECTIVELY PUT JAZZ INTO POP MUSIC AND ADAM LEVINE’S VOICE IS LIKE A STICK OF BUTTER WRAPPED IN BACON HANDED TO YOU ON A WARM GOLDEN PLATE BY PIPPA FUCKING MIDDLETON.

Average fan 6 seconds into "Harder to Breathe"

Okay, so I exceeded the word limit. But given the number of times I’ve failed to meet it (e.g. college essays), I can make an exception. There is really no way to put “one word” to such an amazing performance – the closest one could come would be a wombination, like “orjazzmic.” Did I discover some noticeably non-platonic feelings for Adam Levine? Probably. But more importantly, I finally learned what the ‘5’ in Maroon 5 signifies: the number of dozens of orgasms that any given audience member will have at one of their concerts.