Be Your Own Valentine: An Alternative Guide

Whether you hate commercialism, you're single or you prefer not to part with your money, there are many reasons that you may be anti-Valentine's Day. Here are a list of alternative ways to spend your evening. The world is your non-aphrodisiac oyster.

If music be the food of love, then you will need to loosen your belts. A veritable hotel buffet of acts are performing tonight. Blackwater are playing at Beiluo Cafe and Bar, Skyscraper are playing V.A. Bar, there's the Jazz Jam Session at Jianghu or the Gypsy Jazz Jam Session at Salud and it's Scarlett's Got Talent at Hotel G. All of these events are free. There's also Avril Lavigne at the MasterCard Center.

The Black Sun, Stumble Inn, Irish Volunteer and Tim's Texas Bar-B-Q are all holding their weekly pub quizzes. Go and impress people with your knowledge that St. Valentine is also the patron saint of plagues, epilepsy and beekeepers. These events are also all free.

There's a Free Valentine's Day Wine Tasting at the French Cultural Center on Gongti Xilu. Free wine.

Single Valentine's Day at Dongjen Center For Human Rights and Action in Gulou. It's only RMB 25 and they don't care about your nationality, race, gender or sexual orientation but they do insist that you be single. And that you are willing to have fun.

No Valentine? No problem! at the Kro's Nest Sanlitun with their "Singles Bang." It's free to attend and there are lots of free shots to boot. Please note that we don't actually know what a "Singles Bang" entails.

Nothing says Valentine's Day like a pool tournament. That's the case at Beer Mania. It says "Enter with your loved one." We say it's a doubles tournament so enter with your anyone. It's free and there are prizes.

Toros desde la barrera looks romantic until you find out it means "bullfighting from behind the barrier." That's the name of the exhibition on at the Instituto Cervantes. It sounds utterly fascinating and it is also totally free.

The Laofei Independent Free Library meets tonight at Modernista. To join the sharing, all you need to do is turn up along with a book in any language.

There you go. Have fun. You could also stay in and watch Love & Basketball followed by The Notebook.