Love it or hate it, Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and despite what they may say; your partner IS expecting you to do something romantic. The key to all Valentine’s gift giving is really knowing your partner and their likes and dislikes- you will score no points taking your sports-mad girlfriend to the opera, or buying your boyfriend the one variety of flower that arcs up the allergies and makes him deathly ill.
However, if you are too lazy or unimaginative to plan your own, you could tailor one of the following pre-prepared ‘Valentine’s dates’….
The ‘It’s the thought that counts’ date: Score big points by making it personal.
Invite your partner over for a home-cooked meal full of aphrodisiacs and sensual ingredients such as asparagus, oysters, figs and strawberries. (although if you were thinking of making a dish combining all of those ingredients, take a good hard look in the mirror. Yep, that’s not a chef staring back at you. Go hire one). Clear away the paperwork and junk and actually set the table with flowers and the good china you never use. Make a CD of romantic tunes and have it playing in the background while you present them with your gift of a homemade card filled with personal, badly written poetry.
If all goes well, after dinner crack out the chocolate body paint- because if it’s the thought that counts, there will be no doubt what the thinking behind that gift is.
The ‘Fairytale Fantasy’ date: Not for the faint of heart or short of cash.
You’ll need to start this one early. Fancy pants invite should be laid on the bed (resting of course on rose petals. A nice bunch of flowers that hasn’t been pulled apart would also be handy here) informing your beloved that they are required to keep the 14th free, and may indeed like to have something decent to wear ironed for that day.
Collect your partner in a limo, chilled champagne ready to go and dressed up in your Sunday best. Take them to dinner at a classy and romantic restaurant, remembering not to let them pay for anything.
After dinner, take a limo ride through Kings Park and enjoy the views before finding a (pre-arranged) quiet spot away from the snogging crowds at the war memorial. As the string quartet you have hired begins to play Schubert, Mendelssohn or something equally romantic, get down on one knee and propose to spend the rest of your lives together. If you’re going to do it, why not go all the way?
The ‘Boycott Valentine’s’ date: Share with a friend or mope on your own.
Hire a stack of anti-romance movies such as War of the Roses, Addicted to Love and True Romance. Order pizza, buy a huge block of chocolate and gorge yourself until you have to undo your pants- after all its not like you have a date or anything! Invite your best friends, Jack Daniels, Johnnie Walker and Jose Cuervo over. By the time you wake up all this stupid romance craziness will be over….of course the day of the headache might have arrived instead, but then it’s possibly less nauseating.
The ‘Domestic Bliss’ date: Attempt to rekindle the romance.
Make a special effort to go out and eat somewhere that doesn’t involve plastic tablecloths or all you can eat buffets and resolve not to comment on their clicking jaw when they eat or the way they pronounce ‘bruschetta’. Give each other thoughtful practical gifts like socks or a kitchen organiser and sign the card ‘with love from the dog’. Promise each other that tonight you will make mad passionate love and remind your partner not to have that last glass of wine or they will, of course, fall asleep in front of the TV again….
The ‘Down and Dirty’ date: Forget the food, forget going out- this is what we want, what we really, really want, for Valentine’s Day.
Stock up on sex-toys, lube and sexy underwear and invite your partner (or a really hot stranger) over for a saucy night of fun. Prepare your pad in advance with soft lighting and music, making sure all phones, computers and other forms of communication are off (nothing spoils the mood quite like an update from Mum on how Uncle Pete’s gastric ulcer is playing up). Don’t forget the safe sex kit – it might not be the raunchiest toy in your box, but hey, neither is an STI!Try something your partner has always wanted to do or watch some porn for inspiration- go wild and do it all, everywhere, all night long!
