February 14, the one day of the year, where buying chocolates, flowers and heart shaped anything is a must. The one day of the year, every person in a relationship needs to celebrate being in love.

The entire year, you would be fine without spending time with your significant other but if you don’t plan something romantic on this one day, don’t expect anything but a broken heart.

What started out as a clever marketing strategy to promote love and selling of flowers and chocolates is becoming a contest of showing people around you how you can express your love in the most basic way.
Flowers, chocolates, a teddy bear—preferably red or pink or heart shaped—and a fancy dinner apparently is the best way to show the world you’re in love with your partner.

Couples will spend hundreds of dollars just to prove their love for each other. In 2016, Global News published statistics on how much Canadians spend on just this one day. The numbers were shocking. The average person spends about $191 on candies and chocolates.

In fact, $70.9 million were spent on just flowers and about 12.3 million dozen of roses were imported from Columbia and Ecuador to respond to the needs of Canadians.

Valentine’s day is the day of love that has turned into the day of showing off.

How many times have you heard couples fight or break up because of what happened on Valentines day; the day meant for celebrating love.

Lisa Kadane, in her article ,the Pros and Cons of Valentine’s Day writes, “just because my husband has never given me a tennis bracelet or diamond earrings for Valentine’s Day does not mean he doesn’t care. everyone knows that everyday acts of kindness speak louder than expensive gifts—unless it’s February 14.”

There is this need to buy expensive gifts for your partner after planning a romantic day. Many times, the expensive gift is either a piece of jewellery or an expensive watch. However, is this really the ideal way to express your love.

Wouldn’t you much rather have your partner respect, care and spend time with you instead of organizing so-called romantic dinner dates?

Instead of spending all our time planning and saving up for this one day where you spoil your partner with expensive gifts that mean nothing in the long run, why don’t you support them in their daily struggles and with kind gestures of love.

Valentines day shouldn’t just be a day of celebrating love but it should be the start of a new year filled with kind gestures of love and respect for your partner.