Better to Be Single on Valentine's Day - by Starla Knight

“I really love Valentine’s Day!’ said no unattached person ever.  And why shouldn’t the holiday be depressing for singles, when everyone else is basking in the glory that is romantic love.  While this feeling is understandable, its not exactly rational; being in love is no more wonderful and probably quite a bit less so, on Valentine’s Day than it is on any other day of the year.

The purpose of Valentine’s Day is to assure your romantic partner that all the time and energy that he or she is investing into your relationship is not being wasted, and to give them enough confidence to continue investing in your relationship into the future.  Plain and simple.  If one partner in the relationship feels like they were neglected in the receiving of romantic gifts or gestures, by any measure, then there is a good chance the relationship won’t last through March. 
Wow, that’s a lot of pressure.

Of course, we look for this sort of feedback throughout the year, but February 14th is the one day when you have been culturally forced to show your romantic hand.  From this perspective, Valentines Day is a massive coordinated effort in which men and women have little choice but to spend time and money to assure their partners that they are loved.  (Because what’s more romantic than forced romance?)

And both men and women spend, although men generally end up being the purchaser of more expensive Valentines gifts, like flowers and jewelry. The National Retail Federation predicts that Americans will spend a total of $19.5 billion on Valentine’s giving this year.  That is an average of about $144 per person celebrating this hallmark holiday.

While the saving of wasteful funds is beneficial, it is not just the expense which makes it better to be single on Valentine’s Day.  To appreciate why all you single people are better off unattached, it’s best to think of gift giving on this day as a form of Prisoner’s Dilemma, the outcome of which determines whether or not a person wants to stay in a relationship.

Valentine’s Day, essentially, is a game in which each person who is in a relationship must choose between two strategies; buy a gift for their significant other or do nothing to celebrate the day.

Given that there are two players, each with two (often different) strategic options, there are three possible outcomes than can happen on the big day.

The first outcome is that both choose to buy gifts. In this case, both might be satisfied that their partner is committed to the relationship (of course this is dependent upon several circumstances; the cost, likability and thoughtfulness of the gift in comparison to reciprocated gifts, for starters), but that satisfaction comes at a cost. Unlike Christmas, when you occasionally get things you actually want, the vast majority of spending on Valentines Day is on items that people do not choose for themselves; 53% receive candy, 38% receive flowers, 21% receive jewelry and 51% receive greeting cards.

The reason we rarely buy these things for ourselves is because they cost more than we personally value them. So when our partners buy them for us, they are not getting the biggest bang for their buck in terms of our happiness. Of course, this could be viewed differently;  If one partner expects to be gifted something they could not otherwise afford to buy themselves, and they receive dinner and a card instead.  Ugh, the dilemma is already hurting my head.

And on Valentine’s Day, these romantic things often cost more than they do on other days of the year.  With an average of a 20% to sometimes a 40% markup on costs, industries catering to Valentine’s Day expenses know that people will cave to the social pressure to prove their love in some monetary way, and purchase traditional Valentines gifts.

A Brief History of the Romantic Holiday - Valentine’s Day was originally the Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia, a fertility celebration held on February 15th. In attempts to sway the populous from their pagan traditions the festival was recast, by Pope Gelasius I, as a Christian feast day of St Valentine’s Day, to be celebrated on the 14th of February around 496 AD.

There are three possible St Valentine’s’ the holiday could be named for, each priest, from different regions and different years, were all martyred on February 14th.

However, the Christian feast day was not associated with romantic love until 1381 when the author Chaucer wrote a poem in honor of the engagement between England’s Richard II and Anne of Bohemia, linking the royal engagement, the mating season of birds and St Valentine’s day together:


                                                    “For this was on St Valentine’s Day,

    When every fowl cometh there to   

    choose his mate”  

Fast forward to the Renaissance period and the romantic traditions of St Valentine’s Day began to become prevalent.  By the 1800’s exchanging hand made romantic cards adorned with lace and ribbon had become quite common in England.  Eventually the custom spread to the American colonies, but it didn’t become popular until the 1850’s when Esther Howland of Worcester Mass, began mass producing them. It wasn’t until the 1930’s and 40’s that extras like flowers, chocolate and jewelry became synonymous with Valentine’s Day, each industry taking advantage of new forms of advertising to craft a cultural expectation of spending money on non-essential items to prove the worth of romantic love.

A second outcome is that one person in the relationship buys a gift and the other does not.  This will likely leave the gift giver with the impression that his or her partner is not committed to the relationship, or at minimum, not as committed as the gift giver. From now until mid March is one of the biggest times of the year for break ups, and according to data from Facebook 53% of women say they would dump a guy who ignored Valentine’s Day, two facts that suggest that people who choose this strategy do not end up with much relationship happiness.

Yet, perhaps the month following Valentine’s Day is one of the most popular times of the year for relationships to end because Valentine’s Day encourages us to honestly examine the future of our relationships; it gives us self evaluated data that we might not otherwise have about our partner’s level of commitment.

Romantic relationships suffer from problems that are created by asymmetric information; you may know what’s in your own heart, if you are lucky, but it is impossible to really know what is in the heart of the person you are dating.

Our partners might tell us that they are committed to our relationships, but talk, as they say, is cheap and investing time and energy into a relationship – without knowing our partner’s true level of commitment – exposes us to the possibility of being hurt (not to mention the possible loss of time and financial investments) when we later discover that they are less committed than we thought.

When there is no credible sign of commitment to a relationship, we are tempted to hedge our bets, fold our hand, and look elsewhere for a partner who shares our level of involvement and investment.

The third and final outcome is that neither person in the relationship gives a gift.  This is the outcome that has the biggest return for the couple, especially for those who are already confidently committed. The saving of funds for something more practical or something you really want is nice, and the lack of stressing over what to gift your partner is a lovely relief.  But this is also the outcome that is least likely to occur; the risk is just to high that one person will decide, maybe even at the last minute, to buy a gift for either partner to take the chance that they are going to find themselves in the second outcome – and potentially in the doghouse.

The best strategy would be for couples to ignore the holiday altogether, but they typically wont because there is just too much pressure to conform to holiday traditions from both inside and outside the relationship.  From a game strategic perspective, participating in the holiday just leads to sub-optimal outcomes.

So, if you are in a committed relationship, and you want to treat this culturally manufactured demand to spend money on ridiculous items as the marketing ploy that it is, talk to your partner.  Agree that you are both above the insidious influence, and that you commit to love one another on Valentine’s Day as you do every other important day of your relationship. At least agree to a simple dinner you’ll make together and enjoy together if you feel the need to be able to confess to your peers that you did succumb to the forced romantic pressure.

And if you are single on Valentine’s Day, you are only missing out on the opportunity to participate in an exercise that makes everyone involved worse off than they would have been had the holiday not existed at all. Thank your lucky stars.

Clearly, you are better off being single on Valentine’s Day. And you are certainly no worse off by being single this February 14th than you are any other day of the year.

So if you really want to enjoy the day, go buy yourself something that you actually want. And, in the future, you might think about dating someone with whom you pre arrange an efficient allocation of resources on Valentine’s Day (I suggest  zero). I recommend dating an economist, or at least someone who truly cares about you, and not manufactured social expectations or commercially cultured pressures.

As always, I’d love to hear from my readers. What’s your take on Valentine’s Day gifting or being single on this Hallmark holiday? Email me @ starla.friction@gmail.com.