10 Really, Really Bad Valentine's Day Gift Ideas

By Roy Edroso Wed., Feb. 10 2010 at 3:51 PM

Categories: Featured, Holidays

If you're really in love, you shouldn't have any problem making your feelings known on Valentine's Day. But you might anyway. Because commerce, advertising, and social panic conspire to bamboozle us into bad choices.

The market is now saturated with "unique" Valentine's gifts. These are almost always a bad idea. In some cases they should come with warning labels that say, "Use Only in Relationships You Want to Sabotage."

Perhaps some negative reinforcement will help spare you this fate. Here are 10 Valentine's Day gifts that you almost certainly should not give your sweetheart this weekend. (We will avoid the totally inappropriate gifts curiously recommended at some places for Valentine's Day -- like the Big Book of Alzheimer's Activities -- and concentrate on products offered as V-Day presents to the general public.)

10. Valentine's Day Doormat. Prosaic as your lover might be, he or she will not miss (at least subconsciously) the significance of being invited to wipe his or her feet on your heart.

9. Sweets for My Sweetheart Junk Food Basket. If you both weigh over 300 pounds and/or belong to the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, this might go. Otherwise the message is, "I love you just the way you are, tubby," which will not, however unspoken, be taken kindly.

Same goes for the Chocolate Dipped Oreos.

8. Hobby-Related Valentine's Gifts. We understand the impulse, but what you're really saying with golf, fishing, sewing or other hobby gifts is, as a sign of my devotion I release you to your private world of which I can never be a part. In other words, your partner's deepest desire should be you, but it is instead some leisure activity, and you have accepted that. You might as well buy his-and-her "Doomed" bracelets.

These are only acceptable if you're terminally ill, and want to help your partner move on.