Valentine’s Losing Its Romance?

Brits have fallen out of love with Valentine’s Day – with four out of five of us claiming it’s too commercial and more than a third planning not to celebrate it at all this year.

A new survey by friend finding website CitySocialising found almost a quarter of us hate or dislike Valentine’s Day and a massive 80% of us believe the day has become too commercial. Now the website is organising a series of anti-Valentine parties especially for people who hate February 14. Far from the traditional Valentine image of canoodling with a loved ones almost 40% of those surveyed said they would not celebrate Valentine’s at all.

And it seems February 14 is becoming less of a couples night and more of a night to go out and party especially for women – with 27% of single girls planning to go out with their mates compared with 19% of single men. But despite these killjoys romance is far from dead in the UK with only eight per cent saying they would never buy a Valentine gift for their loved one and the remaining 92% claiming they spent around £40 on cards and gifts every February.

Almost 60% of us have received a Valentine card from a secret admirer and 16% admitted to sending cards to more than one person in the same year. And a whopping 73% of Brits have surprised their loved one with an unexpected romantic gesture. Women are more romantic than their men though with 78% surprising their partners compared to just 62% of men. But eight per cent of us admit we have put off a break up simply because we didn’t want to be alone on February 14. A cynical 2.5% of us even admit to going out with someone shortly before Valentine’s Day just to get a gift – and then cruelly dumping our heartbroken partner afterwards.