On the pointless embrace of mandatory flowers

In less than a week's time it will be Valentine's day, that most manufactured of holidays, when we are asked to buy flowers and chocolate and dinners for our partners - mostly by the people selling flowers and chocolate and dinners.

But to put it bluntly, if your partner doesn't know you love them by now, you've got bigger problems. And any romantic gesture done on the 14th is diminished: did you buy those flowers out of love, or out of habit? Isn't it frankly demeaning to be told how to conduct our love lives by a bunch of advertisers?

So how about, this Valentine's day, use the money you'd spend on dinner and flowers to donate to the Red Cross to help in Haiti.

Of course, the difficulty with saying "I don't want to do anything for Valentine's day" is that neither side wants to make the first step. So to help matters, avail yourself of this handy and to-the-point e-card:

I love you. I know you love me.



Don't get me anything for Valentine's day, help the people in Haiti and donate to the Red Cross instead.

Use the following convenient form to send it:

Recipient email address:

Your email address:



(The email addresses will not be recorded in any database or passed on to any third party. The site uses them to send the card, then forgets about them.)

(Forward this via twitter and and reddit and delicious and and and and to free more people from the pointless embrace of mandatory flowers.)