It is very tricky to buy a Valentine’s Day gift for a guy. (Unless you don’t celebrate it, or think it’s a dumb holiday, in which case it’s not tricky at all.) I’m sure there ARE a FEW guys who enjoy getting flowers and chocolates and sentimental love notes. But in general I think a lot of us are stuck: it’s a holiday about sentimental/romantic love, and the established gifts are things that most guys are not keen on.
When we try to write them a hundred little love notes, or tell them what they mean to us, we’re giving them what WE’D want, not what THEY want—and that’s pretty much the opposite of romantic. (Many of us wouldn’t want the flowers or the chocolates or the hundred little love notes either, but that would be for another post.) I still remember the total failure of the Valentine’s Day symphony tickets I got for my high school boyfriend. “We get to dress up and go listen to romantic classical music with grown-ups!” He probably felt about that the way I would have felt if he’d gotten me a set of socket wrenches.
The goal, I think, is to find guy-romantic: not “Fine, let’s go make out in the car, then,” but something that actually shows some of the romantic spirit.
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