The Etiquette of Valentine’s Day

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for anyone who owns a florist business or a candy shop – or any retail operation that sells greeting cards – and the Internet is buzzing with horrible stories about people who bought the wrong gift for their significant other, forgot to buy a gift for their significant other, or just don’t have a significant other. I found the story about how 13% of all single women buy themselves flowers for the occasion to be an eye-opener; so was the story about the guy who got dumped for sending his would-be girlfriend a teddy bear at work (apparently, it was embarrassing and much too public a declaration) and the one about the guy who produced a big bale of fail by sending the object of his affections a bouquet of cookies for V-Day (apparently she had an eating disorder he’d never found out about, and freaked out upon getting the package). But it got me thinking about the etiquette of the situation – and what the proper behavior should really be…

To begin with, I have to ask if it would be better to try and fail or chicken out altogether? Granted, both of the cases featured above involve large amounts of crazy, either because the women are over-reacting to relatively harmless gifts (it’s possible to get much more personal than these examples) or because the men are complete strangers/bare acquaintances who are attempting to buy themselves relationships. But you can find hundreds (if not thousands) of similar cases online, ranging from the absurd to the heart-breaking, and you could easily find examples to support either side of this argument. Men are likely to face anger and rejection for gift attempts that are too large or too small; too public or not public enough; too serious or too corny; too romantic or not romantic enough; too expensive or too cheap. On the other hand, woman can face negative reactions just by purchasing something at all, and there certainly aren’t any socially-accepted defaults for men the way there are for women (e.g. flowers or jewelry). This may account for the fact that while women purchase two-thirds of the actual Valentine’s cards, men are more than twice as likely to purchase gifts for the occasion…

Then there’s the question about what to buy for your valentine, assuming you’re going to. I’ve blogged about this topic for several years now, so I won’t bore you by repeating those discussions, but any of the above referenced stories tend to indicate that even if you think what you are buying is perfectly appropriate, your significant other may not. I would point out that unlike Christmas or birthdays there is no social expectation of present exchanges for this holiday, which should eliminate the giving of anything truly unpleasant or hateful (so far there don’t appear to be “hate mail” valentines outside of the funny pages), which should make it easier to appreciate the thought behind the gift. On the other hand, if one partner spends weeks researching, shopping, purchasing and preparing and the other just offers to cook dinner (or other personal services) on the spur of the moment, it’s going to be hard for the more engaged partner to keep from feeling disappointed, no matter how much he or she appreciates the services offered…

I make no claims at being a philosopher or a deep thinker or anything other than a close observer of humanity, but I can’t help thinking all of these people are focusing too much on the existence of the question and ignoring the one important thing about the answer. If you are not alone today; if you have someone with whom you want to spend this extremely minor holiday; if you are loved and love someone else sufficiently that the observance of a lover’s festival has any real meaning for you in the first place, then you are already blessed – and presents given or received are just details…

Happy Valentines Day, everyone. Enjoy it if you can…