Valentine’s Day hacks for Valentine hacks

Valentine’s Day is here. A day that is more simultaneously loved and hated than the Star Wars prequels.

A day where we can show people we care for them with a handful of plant matter that will decay in a matter of days and a factory produced sentiment on a piece of card at about six dollars a pop. A day where lonely people long for someone to buy them expensive cardboard, or a pretty piece of metal they can wear and say ‘look at this pretty piece of metal I’m wearing’. A day where self-proclaimed independent thinkers fold their arms indignantly and state with their collective hive mind that Valentine’s day is a scam and that people should show that much care and attention every day rather than one day a year, while completely ignoring that buying your loved one a card, or chocolate, or jewellery, or taking them out to dinner, or whatever would bankrupt you in a few weeks.

A day where your romantic efforts are compared to your partner’s workmates, partners efforts in some kind of sick, blind competition, where you don’t know how well you’re doing until it’s too late.

Love it or hate it, here are some wonderful hacks to survive Valentine’s Day from my vault of log- ically sound, but morally bankrupt advice.

My Partner complains that it’s become too commercial and lost its original meaning. My advice, have an authentic traditional experience, take your partner to a St Valentine veneration service at your local church, it’s a cheap outing as it only costs what you put in the offering plate and the communion part can be passed off as wining and dining. Or if that’s too traditional and you want something more modern and less commercial for Valentine ’s Day, remember that St Valentine is also the patron saint of Epilepsy.

So book yourselves in for a romantic couple’s blood test and electroencephalogram and get yourselves tested. My partner believes that we should treat every day as Valentine ’s Day, so won’t do anything special. My advice is to agree. Agree to the point of stupidity. Send them a Google calendar invite to a different classy restaurant every day for the next month. Send them links in Messenger for your favourite fragrances, jewellery, watches, croc charms, whatever, on a daily basis. And when the summons for bankruptcy court arrive in the mail, wistfully muse how it would be much more affordable if they only treated one day a year like Valentine’s Day.

I have no one this Valentine’s Day. Or any Valentine’s day for that matter. Back when I was single I found Ice Cream solved much of this problem. But if you feel you need to keep up appearances, find a plutonic, single friend and send each other Valentine’s gifts somewhere public like work or the gym, under a fake name. When people ask about the mysterious Valentine, you can tell them it’s someone really sweet but a relationship with them won’t work out. This way you aren’t technically lying and you won’t have to maintain a fake relationship. It also leads people to believe that you’re only single because you’re the discerning type. Just a thought