Studies Show

The Saddest Valentine’s Day Survey You’ll Ever Read

Imagine this: you’re a man out to buy a Valentine’s Day gift for your girlfriend and you decided to bring along your good friend The Daily Mail for some company and advice. You and The Daily Mail have been friends for awhile now — you met while trying out for your school’s water polo team (which the Mail didn’t make since he punched the captain) and while he can be sort of a jerk sometimes, he seems to know a lot about the ladies.

“What about a necklace,” you ask, peering into a Zales, America’s diamond store since 1924. “Do you think she would like a necklace?” The Daily Mail adamantly shakes his head. “DON’T say it with diamonds, man! You know, most women would rather get a poem or a hug than some bling. Women eat that romance stuff up.”

A hug? For Valentine’s day? Isn’t your girlfriend expecting something a little more…thoughtful?

“Dude, where did you hear that?” you ask your pal. Daily shrugs and places a patronizing hand on your shoulder. “A study, man. It’s science.”

This exercise isn’t entirely grounded in fiction: the good ol’ Daily Mail recently published a “study” by the British Heart Foundation revealing that “87 percent of women would most like a hug or romantic gesture on February 14.”

One in ten women wants a hug or a vague “romantic gesture” as a gift from her significant other — now that is one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard. While I am a staunch opponent of Valentine’s Day and the kind of girl who still fetishizes the gift of the mixtape (however anachronistic that may be), that’s the kind of self-effacing bologna that a mother tells her children in the days leading up to her birthday: “Please don’t get me anything for my birthday! Being your mother is gift enough.” That’s why my mother is stuck with about twelve photographs of me lovingly glued into popsicle stick frames.

And why did the great scientific minds behind the British Heart Foundation’s survey conclude that women want romantic gestures or hugs? Evidently you cannot get both! Your man went to Jared, for God’s sake — the Galleria of jewelry! — and now you want him to hold you in his arms?! You’re a monster.

My advice is to not take advice from anyone or anything, whether it be Maxim or “science,” that claims to know what your specific lady wants after lumping her in with 50 percent of the population and making sweeping generalizations. Have faith and do you, gentleman callers — and consider gifting your lady with a hug on more than one day of the year.

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TAGS: Science | the British Heart Foundation | Valentine's Day gifts

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