Valentine's Day - whose side are you on?
Ding, ding, ding! It’s time to pick sides.
Are you the romantic, sensitive kind who loves Valentine’s Day in all its slushy glory or the cynical type who thinks Valentine’s Day is nothing more than a chance for Cupid to rob you blind with that little bow and arrow of his?
The Beatles sang All You Need Is Love, but let’s face it, this isn’t true. It’s very easy to be that romantic when you’re a multi-millionaire pop star, but less so when you’ve no money for the rest of the month because you’ve spent a fortune on tacky heart balloons and cuddly toys.
If you’re a romantic and want to shower your lover (or, fingers crossed, soon-to-be lover) with gifts, but also want to be able to afford to eat till payday, you can do Valentine’s Day in style without bankrupting yourself — see our Valentine’s Day page.
However, for all you cynical types, Amazon has a page called Love Kills: Anti-Valentine’s Products, which includes the strangest items. How about Fatal Attraction on DVD for a bargain £3? Does it get more romantic than that?
An iron for Valentine’s Day?
Well, yes, other options include an iron (£17.50), drinking game cards (£3.50) and plenty of books featuring the worst relationships of all time, such as American Psycho (£6).
Amazon is often competitively priced, and American Psycho and the drinking game cards are the cheapest online at the moment. But be careful – that £17.50 Russell Hobbs steam iron can be bought elsewhere for £12.
I don’t know what you’ll achieve by buying one of these for your loved ones. Buying something (even if it’s anti-Valentine’s) means you’re still buying into the day – you’ve spent money.
And buying your partner an iron may seem hilarious at the time, but you’ll probably pay for it later (and that’s a lot of paying you’ve done for a day you don’t agree with).
I like the idea of Valentine’s Day, but don’t like how companies pressure you into spending money to "prove your love". In an ideal world, we’d all express our love and appreciation of each other every day, but that doesn’t happen as we’re busy (and British) and it certainly doesn’t need to be with presents.
It’s nice there’s one day a year which reminds us to take stock of the relationships we have (and pursue the ones we want). But remember, really think about whether you need to spend anything at all. As the Beatles also say, money can’t buy me love.
What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below or in the forum discussion.
