Ah, Valentine’s Day: a beautiful, wholesome holiday where we all get together to celebrate love in all of its forms. Pink hearts, lovebirds, cheesy cards, overly expensive dates, the whole nine yards. Originally a Christian Feast Day, celebrating one of three Saint Valentines which nobody can seemingly agree on, it has grown to be a worldwide holiday to purchase lots and lots of pink stuff.
I struggle with Valentine’s Day, personally. I am in a relationship with somebody who I love more than life itself, and that might be precisely why I find it so tricky. There is insurmountable societal pressure to find the “right” gift. That perfect object that, in one fairytale-esque gesture, sums up five years of emotional connection to another human being. It’s terrifying, both to feel the need to find something that can show that amount of vulnerability.
I struggle with it, and something tells me that many of you out there do too. That’s why, instead of cataloging the best gifts you could buy (and as such potentially dooming you to buying the same gift that tens of other people have gotten), I’m giving you the absolute worst gifts. I’ve consulted with my friends, the elders in my life and God himself to bring you everything you should avoid.
Number 6: Another Cheap Ass Drugstore Teddy Bear
For many a partner, who’s completely forgotten what time of year it is and is desperately running through a CVS trying to find gifts to stuff in a bag, this is the ol’reliable. It will take up even more space in your house, as it is not a consumable good. It will be cherished for exactly one hour. It is, in fact, made up of the cheapest fabric, with stitching that is holding on for dear life and lifeless black eyes that have beheld the deepest horrors of a sweatshop somewhere in Southern Laos.
However, if you play your cards right, you might be able to sell it. If it’s especially cute, or perhaps one of their favorite colors, it might just work. It’s for this reason that I can’t put it any lower on this list. It might not end your relationship, and as such it gets relegated to number 6.
Buy this gift if you: are incredibly cheap, have a horrible sense of time or are lazy.
Number 5. A Fruit Basket (of Things They are Allergic to)
In a lot of countries like India or Japan, fruits are a common gift to give as a sign of appreciation. A basket of fruit is often something that can be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of attachment level. However, if you are especially forgetful (or uninterested) and did not remember that your wonderful partner has a citrus allergy or some such while shopping at Target, you might just so happen to throw together a fruit basket made up entirely of fruits that your partner is deathly allergic to.
The best thing about this gift is the deep wound that is repeatedly forgetting your partner’s allergies. Not only did you buy them something they can’t eat, you bought several. A whole, ornately arranged basket that shows you did care enough to get something but did not care enough to remember crucial information about the person you are supposed to love.
Furthermore, you must either resign yourself to letting the fruits rot on your kitchen counter or eat them in front of your partner. Either way, nice job idiot.
Buy this gift if you are: ungodly forgetful.
Number 4. A Cursed Amulet
Now this is a classic. Let’s say, you’ve hit the point where you are scavenging through the attic of your childhood home for some sort of gift. You know your mom put your grandmother’s old jewelry up there, and maybe if you find a cute pair of earrings or a pretty bracelet, it might save your skin. It’s dark up there, the light blew out years ago and nobody bothered to replace it. It’s also incredibly tight, feeling more like a crawl space than a proper attic. Still, lighting your way with a small BIC lighter, you’re able to have enough light to investigate.
That’s when you see it, the faint hint of a green glow in the distance. It’s coming out of the cracks of a jewelry box you swear you’ve never seen before. You open it up, and you find a beautiful gold necklace with a stunning, green gem pendant. You hold it up to the flame to get a better look, it’s perfect.
See, cursed amulets are often free and can be found in old storage spaces you haven’t looked inside of since a relative died. This makes them a great gift for those on a budget, but the downside is once your partner puts it on they will never be able to take it off. In fact, it will fuse to their skin and burn anything that touches it with the intent to remove it. It will also constantly whisper evil thoughts to your partner, making sleeping in the same bed at night awkward. For those reasons, it might be best to avoid it.
On the bright side, it is genuinely quite beautiful.
Acquire this gift as a quest reward if: you hear the spirits whispering, beckoning you back up into the attic.
Number 3. This Incredibly Detailed Anime Figurine of a Character You Promise You Don’t Have a Crush on.
Look, it can sometimes take a lot of effort to find shows that you and your partner can enjoy together. Sometimes it borders on maddening. This is why anime is often the best course of action when it comes to looking for a show. They often have interesting and engaging plots and premises with character designs that sometimes border on pornographic. That in and of itself might not be a problem unless you ogle one of those characters too long or talk about them too much… or leave your browser history open one too many times.
For this reason, buying an anime figurine (of which many cost upwards of $300), of the character you keep making goo-goo eyes at as a gift for your partner on Valentine’s Day might not be the best play. Neither is trying to cover with the excuse “We watched that show together, babe! You said you liked it! Why are you getting mad?”
Buy this gift if you are: a weeb.
Number 2. Sex Coupons (for Acts to Which You Will be the Recipient.)
Around this time of year, you will often find gift ideas that amount to coupons that you print out and can be turned in to a partner for sex acts. It’s this incredibly transactional attitude about sex that confounds me when it comes to straight culture, but alas my Pinterest feed is chock full of them.
Still, the normal idea is that you only print out the ones that confer a duty upon you to perform a sex act upon your partner. This is nice, it’s in the spirit of giving that the holiday is all about, and might even be considered playful.
It is now that I tell you, if your intention truly is to prove you are the most self-centered person in the northern hemisphere, you can instead only print out the coupons that confer duties onto your partner. By taking the transactional nature of this gift one step further, and imaginarily indebting your partner into sex unwittingly via laser printer, you will just ruin any good-will you might have been able to build up since the Amulet fused into their sternum.
Craft this gift if you are: a self-centered creep.
Honorable Mentions
Pet Snake
A pet snake is a 20-30 year commitment. Good luck figuring that out in the breakup.
The Entire 9 Disk Box Set Collection of the Hit Texan Anime RWBY
RWBY is a 3D animated anime made in Texas. It’s my favorite show, and I will defend it to the ends of the earth. The only problem is that it’s niche as hell and odds are your partner doesn’t know about it. The box sets are also out of production and really expensive ever since the company that made it went out of business.
Confederate Flag
Now, listen. Somebody out there might appreciate receiving a Confederate Flag for Valentine’s Day. Those people are out there, posting on 4chan and probably living in Lake County. However, you live in Portland, Oregon. You go to Portland State University. This is the school where we manufacture new types of gay people, and that’s a wonderful thing. Your partner most likely will not enjoy receiving a Confederate Flag. Still, if you feel it might work, I can’t like physically stop you for I am just letters on a page.
Number 1. The Valentine’s Day Brick
You did it. The year is 2026, and you finally survived both the intense Pacific Northwest winter and climate change induced scorching hot summer on the street after your partner kicked you to the curb. It’s another winter, another February and another Valentine’s Day. You’ve come crawling back, with an apology and a special gift that came to you in a dream recreation of a half-remembered YouTube skit from 2012.
Here’s the play. You find a brick, any brick. It doesn’t have to be fancy and bricks are fairly common in a city with as much construction as Portland. You take it and you find a sharp scrap of metal. Using that piece of metal, you carve in the gift recipient’s name, as well as a heart.
Then, you find a bow. It doesn’t matter how you find the bow, just as long as you can tie it around the brick to really affect that cutesy, Valentine’s Day aesthetic. If you’re really feeling fancy, you can wrap it in old newspapers (perhaps even copies of the Portland State Vanguard).
You leave it on the front porch of your former partner’s house like a cat dropping a dead bird into a living room. You ring the doorbell and hear scuffling around inside. You wait, anxiously.
You think back on all of the horrible gifts, the lost moments, how you might not have been there for your partner as much as you perhaps should have been. All the times you could have been a shoulder to cry on and weren’t. All the times you could have supported them but didn’t.
You want forgiveness, but do you deserve it? Does a brick cut it?
Make this gift if you are: trying.
No matter what the case, I hope this short list of gifts to avoid this Valentine’s Day helps you in your endeavor to pick out a gift for your lover, or even for a friend.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
