A Valentine's Day comedy sketch

Valentine’s Day: It's a celebration of love and happiness — but also a source of pain and yearning. On yet another Feb. 14, producer and comedian Alex Cheng submitted this sketch about the darker side of the holiday.

The following is a transcript of the comedy sketch, lightly edited for clarity. Listen to the full segment with the audio player above.

Valentine's Day is a happy, if stressful, occasion for many people. But this year, it's set to be a certifiably miserable experience for a certain lovelorn individual.

I’m talking, of course, about you. That's right — you, the person reading this right now.

That’s because sources say you're still not over your ex, even though she broke up with you months ago.

Your sister, Angela, told me you're still moping about your ex: "He'll start talking about her, and he's got these sad eyes — and I just want to punch him in the face. I think we all just want to punch him in the face."

Your best friend, Donald, was almost rendered speechless by your behavior: "He's still texting her. I saw some of the messages. They were … I couldn't believe it ... I just hope he gets help."

According to screenshots provided to MPR News, several of the texts you sent your ex in January — begging her to take you back — were shared in various group chats, just as you had feared. Reactions ranged from "so pathetic" to "what's wrong with this guy. lol anyway are you at the bar [sic]."

What exactly is wrong with you? Why are you still hung up on your ex, even though you know that she's dating someone new — someone who's much nicer and much more attractive than you are — and that she's almost certainly happier now than she ever was with you?

Why is it so hard for you to accept that?

For answers, I turned to Tynan Challenor at the University of California, Berkeley. He's an expert on the neurological underpinnings of love, and he told me how brokenheartedness works in the brain.

"When some people are dumped, the obsession center of the brain swells with secretions from the dependency gland, which creates pressure on the neighboring dorsal regret lobe," Challenor explained. "This sends signals shooting down your ‘want-what-I-can't-have’ pathways, ultimately causing you to cry and say stupid things like 'I miss us.'"

I took several scans of your brain while you were sleeping and showed them to Challenor. He made a diagnosis almost immediately.

"Well, it's clear from these images that this person is simply ... very weak, mentally speaking," Challenor said. "This is the brain of a big baby."

So you're a baby. But how do you move on?

Relationship coach Jenny Arimoto says that your current strategy — of listening to "69 Love Songs" on repeat while swiping idly though dating apps and eating cottage cheese straight out of the carton — isn't working, and it's time to try something new.

"The best thing you can do when you're sad about someone is to focus on yourself," Arimoto said.

"Look in the mirror, and try to see past your mistakes — and your adult acne and your bad posture and your terrible haircut and your stupid face that your ex ultimately couldn't stand looking at for even one second longer," Arimoto encouraged. "Just commit to personal growth."

Lord knows that'll be a challenge for you. But there is hope.

Most experts predict that by 2026, the acute pain of the break-up will have faded from your memory, and you'll rarely feel a pang of loss when you think about your ex — though an aching sense of what could have been will haunt you for the rest of your life.

MPR News was unable to reach your ex for this story. And that's probably for the best, don't you think?

Thanks to Angela Cheng, Donald Chang, Tynan Challenor and Jenny Arimoto for lending their voices to the audio of this comedy sketch.

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