Steph- Ah, Valentine’s Day—the one day of the year where love is placed front and center and over-the-top displays of romance become necessary in order to sustain relationships. For single people, the day can be a nightmare, a reminder of how lonely they are as they fire up Netflix and work their way through an entire pint of ice cream. For people in relationships, it’s even more of a nightmare, as the pressure to do something thoughtful and expensive with your significant other builds incrementally as the 14th approaches.

Regardless of how bleak and bitter that opening paragraph was, I’m not anti-Valentine’s Day. I think a lot of people need an excuse to let more love into their lives. Personally, I will be spending Valentine’s Day with my boyfriend (see: the other half of this article), attempting to cook fettuccine alfredo in my kitchen because we are both broke high school students who have no desire to go to a crowded restaurant, anyway. Or something like that.

But before you even get to the actual Valentine’s Day part of Valentine’s Day, there’s a lot of preparation. The most important part of preparing for Valentine’s Day is buying your boyfriend/girlfriend a present that adequately expresses your love. Guys have it easy; buy flowers, chocolates in a heart-shaped box, and maybe even a teddy bear (if you’re really feeling the love) and you’re done. For girls, it’s not quite that simple, because what do guys want for Valentine’s Day? This is a question we must attempt to answer.

Flowers are out, because no guy is willing to openly sacrifice their masculinity for the sake of a few long-stemmed roses, even if they secretly love flowers, as I thought my boyfriend did before we had this conversation.

Me: “Do you want flowers for Valentine’s Day?”

Boyfriend: “No… guys don’t like flowers.”

Me: “Yeah, but you do, right?”

Boyfriend: “No… my mom likes flowers.”

Me: “But you like them too, right?’

Boyfriend: “No.”

So it was back to the drawing board, and by drawing board I mean Google, where I typed “what to get your boyfriend for Valentine’s Day” into the search bar for the tenth time this week.

Ultimately, I decided on the gift I got my boyfriend after asking no less than four of my friends what they were getting their boyfriends for Valentine’s Day. I’m pretty confident that he will like the gift I got him, but even if he doesn’t, he has to pretend to love it anyway. But even if he doesn’t actually like his present, it doesn’t really matter.

Because Valentine’s Day is not just about the presents and the posts on Instagram, even if part of it is. In the end, Valentine’s Day is a day to celebrate the love, romantic or otherwise, that gets us through every day of our lives. Even if your boyfriend or girlfriend doesn’t get you the gift you wanted (or doesn’t exist), take some time to appreciate all the people in your life who show you love.
And boys, don’t forget to buy your girlfriend a bouquet of flowers.

Kee- Holy $#!&, Valentine’s Day is upon us.

It is the day that the male population is terrified of: so scared that they would rather forget about it and accept the consequences rather than actually partake in the celebration of couples all around the world.

So the question is, why do guys dread to see the fateful day approach them? For starters, men are usually absolutely clueless on what to do for their significant others. Flowers and chocolates are a given, sure, but what’s next? What if you already got your girlfriend a teddy bear? Do you get her another one, perhaps bigger? What if you forgot to get her a Singing Valentine? Do you have to serenade her? What if she wants to go out to Cheesecake Factory but you just want to stay inside, order pizza and watch a movie? Do you order a limo? The answer is yes, yes, and absolutely yes. Why, you ask? Enough with the questions, say I, because the answer will be the same: it’s Valentine’s Day.

Ladies, in case you haven’t realized yet, I have a news for you: men are dumb. You will be dropping hints that you and your girlfriends would find painfully obvious, yet your boyfriend will simply be lost without super-obvious hints. Of course the classics will be ready – the flowers, the chocolate, the jewelry, etc. – but if you want your significant others to go over the top, dropping subtle hints is simply not going to get the job done.

It is easy to stereotype Valentine’s Day for guys. It is the day where our wallets empty out, but our hearts fill up. You may be wondering where all the Christmas and birthday money in your piggy bank went, and I am sure you were dying to get that Jordan Retro 2 or Kobe 11 Elite, or that new Messi jersey, or those “Another One” slides that all your friends have. All this time, you have resisted the temptation to go out to WaWa to get lunch or go see a movie with your friends to save up each and every dollars are flashing by.

But guys do care. We do care about you and Valentine’s Day. We do not forget about it on purpose, you know. If we didn’t care, would we really spend that much time and money to make at least one day of the year special for you? The gifts may not be perfect, and they may not be exactly what you asked for or wanted, but it really shows our attempt to make you smile. Sure, we may have needed to call your best friend last second to help us with shopping, but it’s better than guys wandering about in Target trying to figure out what chocolate we should get for you.

So gentleman, it’s Feb. 14 again. It’s the day you can not manage to mess up, and you should not. This is the day that you have a chance to show your significant other how you really feel, as inconsiderate as you usually are. Make it unforgettable and beautiful. You should show your romantic side at least once a year.