You spent the weekend tapping through the Coachella Snapstories. You may have broken out the flower crown filter a few times, with a selfie captioned “having the best time at Coachella lol!!” that you hope people think is funny and ironic, but really is not funny and ironic at all because you’re legitimately upset at not being in attendance.

Perhaps you wore a real flower crown to your Saturday brunch in unrequested solidarity, and refused to take it off until a) your friend forcefully removed it from your head or b) you got the hint by the 26th dirty look that a flower crown is neither appropriate attire for the middle of the day in College Town, Suburgatory, nor is it whimsical, as you are 20 years old and have a paper due in four hours.

Whatever the occasion, another weekend of Coachella is rapidly approaching. Here’s how to pretend you’re there revelling in all your flash-tatted, bohemian glory instead of wasting away in a library cubicle preparing for end-of-year exams (this is a hypothetical situation) (no really I’m fine ha ha).

STEP ONE: HIDE
No one is going to believe you’re at Coachella if they can see you binge-watching The Catch in your room all weekend.

STEP TWO: WEAR ALL OF YOUR JEWELLERY. ALL OF IT.
Discretion is the antonym of Coachella; to wear a singular dainty gold necklace is to sin. Jewellery is to Coachella as burrito toppings are to Chipotle: either you go all out, or you don’t go at all.

STEP THREE: DO SOME LIGHT WIKIPEDIA-ING OF ALL OBSCURE BANDS THAT WILL BE PERFORMING
No, “Imagined Herbal Flows” is not the name of a failed tearoom that folded because its business model of serving imaginary tea to customers on the promise of a “total zen experience” ultimately proved unprofitable. And no, “Miami Horror” was not Marco Rubio’s campaign slogan. Both are legit performers in attendance, and you better read up on the history of their drummer’s brother’s cat or you will be shamed. Don’t be these girls (though personally I think “The Chelsea Clintons” is an excellent name for a band).

STEP FOUR: BE SURE EVERY YOU’RE SPAMMING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA
The mark of a true Coachella attendee is that by the end of the weekend, they will have lost 10 followers on Instagram and be blocked on Snapchat due to incessant posting. In this day and age it DID NOT HAPPEN unless it was posted on social media, so be sure to include as many dark/blurry/loud images and videos as humanly possible. Bonus points for an irrelevant emoji. Now is the time to use the flan.

STEP FIVE: ADVENTURES IN ANTI-FASHION
Kendall Jenner got away with wearing bermuda jeans last year, so I think that’s the fashion world’s way of giving you the green light to wear whatever you want. Got a galaxy printed t-shirt with a cat face slapped squarely in the middle? Now’s your time to shine! Accidentally smeared your winged eyeliner halfway down your face? How avant-garde! Have a hankering to cut off one sleeve of a suede jacket and bedazzle the collar? What a quirky idea!

STEP SIX: THE RETURN
After a long weekend of pretending to be at Coachella, the only rule is that you can’t let anyone forget that you were (sort of) there. It’s definitely acceptable -nay, required- to post a #tbt of your weekend escapades four days after the festival ends with the caption “take me back!” or “serious withdrawals rn”. Every other sentence should start with “that’s cool, but when I was at Coachella, we did this“.