1. Locate/build time machine.

2. Travel back in time to kill Hitler.

3. Bring Hitler’s body back to present, show it to Heather. (She hates Hitler, will be impressed, will finally go to dinner with you.)

4. Rethink plan: if you kill Hitler before he does his Hitlering, Heather will never learn about his evil; therefore, won’t be impressed if you kill him; will in fact be terrified that you’re presenting her with mustachioed corpse of seemingly innocent man. So…

5. Travel back in time to stop yourself from killing Hitler.

6. Wait until Hitler’s done a tiny bit of Hitlering; then, kill Hitler, bring back body, etc. (c.f. 3, above.)

7. Once Heather goes to dinner with you and is charmed and finally sees what she’s been missing out on all these years, date her.

8. If Heather wants to be exclusive before you do, use time machine to travel back to before she wanted to be exclusive and swap places with past self, so that the current you can continue casually dating her unencumbered by premature expectations of commitment.

9. Repeat 8 as necessary, until you’ve aged too much and/or Heather comments on your thinning hair, then reluctantly agree to committed relationship.

10. But secretly use time machine to go back and sleep with your ex-girlfriends back when your past self was dating them (technically not cheating because at that point in the timeline you were in a relationship).

11. Travel to future to make sure things work out between you and Heather, just to make sure you’re not wasting your time/machine. If Future Heather is married to someone else, disguise self as kindly old man, sit beside her on train, and casually work conversation to subject of past relationships and why they didn’t work out, then travel back in time and use that information to lock it down. But pay attention: if Future Heather is giving off signals that she’s into you in your old man disguise, keep up ruse and date her.

12. See 8, but don’t worry about getting too old since she’s apparently into older men.

13. Rethink plan again: If you need to continually mess with the space-time continuum and wear an old man disguise to win/retain Heather’s love, maybe she isn’t the right person for you; maybe, of all the people who have ever lived or ever will live, there’s someone else out there who’s a better match; or maybe just use time machine to see if Heather and her future husband have a hot daughter.

14. If yes: To make sure Heather’s daughter also hates Hitler, get hired at her school as a history teacher and focus lessons on the horrors of World War II.

15. Travel further into the future, befriend Heather’s now-adult daughter, and casually bring up the topic of Hitler. When she expresses revulsion, make your move (step 2, followed by modified 3).

16. Be careful: Future Heather may notice that her daughter’s lover looks remarkably like her coworker from the 2010’s who sat two cubicles away from her (so close, yet so far). If so, DO NOT ADMIT THAT YOU USED A TIME TRAVEL MACHINE TO TRAVEL TO THE FUTURE TO DATE HER DAUGHTER. Instead, casually laugh and say, “That’s funny, but a lot of people resemble other — hey, look, it’s Hitler’s corpse that I killed!” (You held onto the body, right?)

17. Tread carefully with 16; the sight of Hitler’s corpse could send Future Heather into an uncontrollable paroxysm of sexual gratitude, and it could ruin your relationship with her daughter if she falls in love with you, too. If this happens, you’ll have only one choice…

18. Go back in time to right before you met Heather and force your past self to grow ridiculous facial hair as a disguise. (Note: NOT A HITLER MUSTACHE.)

19. Proceed as planned — unless it turns out that Heather’s into the hirsute you, and all you needed to do to woo her was grow a beard.

20. If so, probably still travel back in time to kill Hitler, unless you’re too busy banging Heather.

21. But be careful: It’s possible all this meddling with the past, present, and future could somehow create a Heather/Hitler hybrid: her eyes, his haircut, her sweet voice mixed with his oratorical fury. If so, instead of running back to the time machine heartbroken at this karmic comeuppance, pause and consider that finding “the one” might be an impossible fantasy. Maybe “part-Hitler, part-soulmate” is the best anyone can ask for, and you should settle for what you’ve got.

22. So grab “Heathler” in your arms, tell her-him that you’re committed to making this work, and get ready to share a life full of laughter, love, and foiling endless time-travel assassination attempts.

23. Just wait a bit before you bring up raising the kids Jewish.