FOMO – noun. Fear of Missing Out; the feeling of being left out of activities; the anxious and sad feeling that things can happen without you and you won’t know any of the stories or funny references that come from such event, usually brought upon by watching Snapchat stories and Facebook posts; i.e. After looking at her Snapchat story, I realized I had FOMO.

I have FOMO. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone gets it, and with the right steps you no longer have to live with FOMO. After the flu and STDs, FOMO is one of the most rampant problems throughout campus. With the “selfie generation” living it up throughout Spring quarter, we’re in for FOMO season.

Spring quarter is prime time for it to come about, with events all throughout the day, every week, great weather, and probably just as difficult of a workload with jobs and school, you simply don’t have time to do all of the things that you want to do. Have no fear! The best way to live with a fear of missing out is to not miss out, or to at least make it look like it. Here are some helpful tips to get you there:

1. Make it appear as if you’re having an even better time than the Snapchat stories you were watching.

According to Party Etiquette taught by every social chair at the beginning of the school year, you should never attend parties for ten minutes to drink and then leave. It’s rude. When it comes to FOMO, an exception can be made. I would recommend going to pool parties in the afternoon, Snapchatting it, and then leaving. There is no need to socialize, consume alcohol, or anything of the sort. Then like any great name brand shampoo, lather, rinse, and repeat. So as soon as night falls, do it again. It doesn’t matter if you have a test or homework, take the Snapchat and go back to studying! As long as your story is “lit” people will think you participated in such.

2. LIE.

One of the greatest things about having a good time is having evidence that you did, specifically through stories. Dinner after pool parties is a solid time for you to gauge how poppin’ the afternoon has been, because that vibe usually transcends into the evening. So take dinner as a time to investigate not only what’s happening tonight, but also to see how cool and extravagant your story needs to be in order to be “cooler” than everyone else. As the night continues, you can apply what you learned in Step 1 and fabricate stories that make it seem as though you had the craziest story of all time that you can share the next morning.

3. Take advantage of Locations on Instagram.

A key feature on Instagram is the ability to show the entire internet where you are. Parties have too many people for anyone to ever catch you on this, so why not pretend you were there all along? What’s the harm? You’re basically taking the concept of Step 1 and 2, and applying them to a whole different App! Locations tell people that you had a good time. For the perfect picture for Instagram, take a slightly blurry picture, and edit it so that the lighting is very bright and white. You can then add a caption along the lines of it being a “low quality pic, but high quality night.” There’s nothing wrong in being a caption copier, if it’s hands down one of the most commonly used captions by sorority girls all over the country. To really add effect, make sure your caption is the entire fraternity name, don’t use abbreviations or nicknames. No one ever questions full named fraternities.

4. Don’t do your homework.

Like I said before, the best way to get over the fear of missing out is to not miss out. The first three steps allowed you to still be an active student while making it appear as though you weren’t missing out on the best quarter of the year. But sometimes you just need to give in. Yeah, you’re probably busy with two midterms and a paper to write. On top of that, you’re probably preparing for your philanthropy week and scouring all of Greek Row for a date to your formal. You’re in school for 4+ years, you have plenty of time to make sure your GPA bounces back from the dip it’ll take right now. You only have now, so who cares about homework?

5. Pretend that you don’t actually have FOMO.

Maybe skipping your homework isn’t for you if you have too good of a conscience or your GPA can’t take it because you’re still trying to get into your major. It’s okay. You can take the high road. You can act as though all of these parties are completely beneath you, that you “didn’t want to go out.” You have no reason, but that you thought it wouldn’t be fun. You convince yourself that the best memories involve you, it's not going to be fun without you there. There’s nothing cooler than someone telling someone else that their interests don’t matter, that’s hardcore.

Spring quarter is here and with the best part of the quarter around the corner, there’s no need to worry. For those of you struggling with FOMO, don’t worry, these tips will make it look as though you had the quarter to remember.