Terrible gifts for Valentine's Day

Just four more nights and then it's Valentine's. We'll be with Amayzine in New York, so I'll only read all those cards a week later. As everyone here in the editorial office predicted, I'm a huge Valentine's sucker. Not a hair on Liesbeth's head that she will be sitting in a restaurant with a man on the 14th^the while I will have reserved a spot at least a week in advance. What's funny is that Liesbeth does swoon over a self-made poem (and by the way also over poetry from year zero). So I really run away screaming. I did a round with my girlfriends and it turned out that we mainly want handwritten letters and a night of cooking the most. So we aren't that difficult. I'll share with you (for the men who happen to be reading this now, who have now also been caught) what you especially cannot make us happy with on Valentine's Day. “Just open the Blockker newspaper now, it contains everything that is forbidden.” wrote friend S to me first. Clear case. 

The absolute worst is a bear holding a heart between its paws with ‘I love you’ on it or something. No, but actually I find all stuffed animals nothing.

And then between its mouth or something. Yeah, bye. I do really like real flowers, but I will scream from gerberas. “With a second bouquet free at the Appie during the Hamster weeks, it can also go away,” says friend E.

Thanks for being there? Brrrr. Very cliché and it's very much taking the easy way out. I'd rather bike to Huize van Wely or pastry shop Holtkamp for a box of real chocolate. You'll do every woman a favor.

It's all nice and easy that you can send a card from behind your desk and it might be convenient that your own handwriting is not recognizable (since your text is typed). But I also find it a bit lazy and very impersonal.

“Very much.”

“My dad seriously gave this to my mom once because he thought she peeled the potatoes too thickly,” said friend L. Well, maybe all handy devices, but so not romantic. A turn-off even!