Whether you’re spending the pinkest day of the year with your last formal date, your boyfriend of three years, your best friends or your laptop, Valentine’s Day is approaching us quicker than we think. However, when you get to college, a few things change about Valentine’s Day, but no matter how you spend it, there are ten steps almost everyone goes through during the four (more or less) Valentine’s Days spent in college.

1. Homework

If you have any hope of celebrating the holiday at all, you probably have to excavate your way through a mountain of homework. This is a personal shoutout to the professors that schedule exams the day of or after the big V-day out of the cold, bitter depths of their hearts.

2. Shopping

Nothing is more ~college~ than swiping your card to buy a few boxes of candy for your S.O. before quickly looking towards the heavens to pray that it doesn’t decline, except maybe looking at your checking account and realizing you don’t even have enough to pay for enough gas to get to the store.

3. Making plans

“Where do you want to eat?” “I don’t know, where do you want to eat?” “I don’t care, where do you want to eat?” Repeat.

4. Getting ready

The best part of any night, holiday or not, is tearing your closet to pieces and seeing if you can walk in those heels (you can’t) all in anticipation of the fun to come. Not being able to fit an ironing board in your dorm room won’t stop you!

5. Ordering the food

Whether you’re on a hot date, getting takeout with your friends or splitting drinks at the bar with your bestie, Valentine’s Day is majorly underrated for the amount of expensive food you can order, and eat, whilst still being considered socially acceptable. Go ahead and get the steak. And the lobster. With a side of crab legs.

6. Eating

Food that wasn't cooked in a microwave or courtesy of the dining hall! Oh, how I have forgotten how holy thou art. Pass the salt!

7. Gift exchange

If this is your first Valentine’s Day with someone, gift exchange is a pretty tense moment. Did you buy enough? Too much? What did they spend? Can they tell I got it on sale? If you’re with your friends, it’s probably a pint of ice cream. The ice cream is probably better than the gift card that guy you’ve been seeing three weeks will buy you, just a heads up.

8. What next?

If this is a relatively new relationship, the second the check is paid presents a new round of questions: Are they walking you to your dorm? Are you sleeping at theirs? Again, if you’re with your friends, this question can be avoided, and you don’t have to share your cramped twin bed. #winning

9. Getting undressed

Whipping your heels off and throwing your earrings onto the counter is almost as fun as the preparation for the evening. Nothing feels better than wiping all your makeup off and snuggling down into your sheets (even this means leaping onto your bed because your work order to get it un-lofted hasn’t gone through yet. Sigh.).

10. Telling your friends everything over brunch

If it wasn’t discussed over waffles, did it even happen?

Some things change about Valentine’s Day when you get to college; some things don’t. Single or not, it’s easy to have fun on a day filled with love, even if that love is reserved exclusively for your Netflix account.