Around this time of year, when balloons and packages of candy and sarin gas pellets all come in heart shapes, it's difficult, even for the blackest hearted among us, not to think of loves lost, never found or accidentally disintegrated.

Many among our ranks often wonder whether it's possible, outside a few notable exceptions--The Joker and Harley Quinn, The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend, The Absorbing Man and Titania, Bebop and Rocksteady, The Ventriloquist and Scarface--many villains are lonely in love.

But is that the way it has to be? Not necessarily. Follow these basic guidelines, and you may beat the odds.

Present yourself well. Walking straight out of your state-of-the-art laboratory for mad science experiments smelling like attack gator and covered in hypno-gel is no way to attract a mate (unless you plan is to frighten him or her with attack gators, then subdue your potential mate with hypno-gel). Take a shower. Comb your hair. Put on some nice clothes. Change your appearance using a portable hologram projector. De-age yourself with a Youth Beam. You know, basic hygiene.

Find someone with common interests. Lots of cities have supervillain hangouts. Go to one sometime. Chat up a looker about your thing about making tall buildings shoot into space like rockets. You'll find someone who's interested.

Be confident. You're a person who spends most of the week making lengthy speeches about how everyone will pay for not respecting you enough. You can ask another human being to go eat food with you sometime.

Be willing to open yourself up, emotionally. To develop a lasting relationship, you need to get past your prickly exterior and show the true, sensitive supervillain underneath. The one who acts out just because he/she wants to feel wanted. (NOTE: PorcuPete, this one is impossible for you.)

Try to become capable of love. If your first instinct when you're around someone is to give them everything they could want in life, that's pretty close to love. If your first instinct is to swarm them with MurderBots, it isn't (but it's a lot like marriage, am I right, folks?).

Do not kill your mate. That's pretty counterproductive.