Yes to socks, no to flowers

SLOUGH, ENGLAND:

Valentine’s Day has descended upon us once again. There is very little chance this tantalising fact can have escaped your notice even if you had not diligently marked it on your calendar, because it is the favourite time of year of sellers of flowers, balloons, and anything that can be coloured red and moulded into the shape of a heart – and they are, unfortunately, a rather in-your-face attention-seeking crowd. Or at least they are every February, anyway.

Welcome to the non-romantic edition of Valentine’s Day, where we peek behind the curtain, kick aside the detritus of decaying flowers and explore what really encompasses that most elusive thing of all: true love. Disney lore will inform you that true love can only be ascertained via true love’s kiss. Advertising execs, meanwhile, will be at pains to tell you that true love can only be achieved via the medium of roses and red heart-shaped things. And finally, veterans in the trenches of marriage insist that real love has much to do with thick winter socks and taping one’s mouth shut in the driver’s seat. Who is right?

Demystifying romance ABCs

We may as well dispense with those persistent love-laden red roses, because, like the spring equinox soon to follow, they crop up every February with scientific rigour. We are repeatedly assured that nothing says ‘I love you’ better than a bouquet of cellophane-wrapped roses. Ergo, on this auspicious day, all over the world, scores of unwilling non-green-fingered recipients of flowers (the ones who have trouble keeping a cactus alive) will be strapping on their best fake smiles as they ferret about in their cabinets for a large receptacle to house this thorny unwanted and ultimately useless present. What no one has thought to tell this cactus killer’s ardent love-riddled partner, you see, is that flowers are not a gift; they are a chore. “Here is something that you need to keep in fresh water and trim the stems diagonally every two days to slow down its impending decay,” is what your optimistic gift-giver is really saying.

In terms of pure practicality, then, the equally useless heart-shaped helium balloon wins on merit. A balloon may be a literal waste of space, but at least we are spared the expectation of pretending to slow its inevitable demise. It is perfectly acceptable to leave a balloon in a corner and never look at it again. Quite what either of these items says about love, however, remains a mystery.

So what really is love?

Flowers and balloons and heart-shaped chocolate, you see, are the domain of romance newbies, the ones who have yet to drive with their other halves for the first time. Here is the ultimate test for your relationship for all women: if you are the privileged holder of a driving licence, put a man in the passenger seat and drive from Gulshan to Gulberg (or worse, Niagara Falls to New Jersey, or London to Birmingham, or point A to B literally anywhere in the universe). If that man can refrain from commenting on your braking, indicating, overtaking, steering, gear-changing or any driving-related business, then I am afraid to inform you that he is not a man at all, but a certified unicorn. Shield him from the masses and never publicly speak of this again, for he will be in such hot demand that a horde of determined women will be lining up to kidnap him.

The perfect present

If you do have a unicorn on your hands, there will come a point – a birthday, or even this very Valentine’s Day, if you insist on celebrating it – when you will have to give him a gift. Gift etiquette mandates that a present should say more about the giver than the receiver. Therefore, for those of you with a creative bent, avoid the Chandler and Monica route. In other words, do not ever attempt to ‘make’ their present, such as foisting a curated playlist of your choice upon them or writing a meaningful love letter of your treasured time together or a personalised novella with him as the hero (unless your name is JK Rowling). You do not want to see the flash of horror in your beloved unicorn’s eyes when he realises you have given him a reading assignment that he will be required to provide intelligent (but complimentary) feedback on. It is almost as exhausting as keeping roses alive for a week.

However, the good news is that unicorns are sticklers for practicality, which puts a bit of a damper on your creative prowess but certainly widens the scope of available gift ideas. The irony is that this very essence of practical goodness means they are notoriously difficult to shop for. They already have everything they could ever want, such as threadbare hoodies dating back to the early 2000s and a collection of holey socks from the previous millennium.

But all is not lost. This year, you can astonish your unicorn with a brand-new set of six thick winter socks (feel free to opt for all-weather socks if that is more practical in your locale.) It may have pained your creative heart to be associated with socks, the universal code for ‘boring’, but to watch the pure joy steal upon his face will be worth the damage to your ego – especially when you factor in the very real possibility that up until this moment, he probably had no idea brand-new socks existed. When you add the solemn promise that you will refrain from stealing these socks like you stole his hoodies, your gift is complete. If it was socially acceptable for him to do so, he would weep tears of happiness.

As a final tip, try to keep your mouth shut (the way he does during your driving) when he lovingly unveils just one pair of socks and squirrels away the other five to be used sparingly over the next decade after this one is ravaged by holes. Because at the end of the day, real love is about choosing our battles – just like he will stoically choose to not fight when you break your promise and steal his remaining socks.