A man buys balloons on Valentine’s Day in Los Angeles, Calif., in 2017. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

You’ve saved hundreds if not thousands of dollars by society allowing you to look just straight-up worse than we do.

A new survey found that men plan to spend an average of $339 on their partners for Valentine’s Day, while women play to spend an average of $64 — and some men think that this is unfair.

First of all, let me say that I think spending $339 on Valentine’s Day is ridiculous. I mean, where are all of these men? I would really love to know, because no one has ever spent that much on me on Valentine’s Day. Maybe I’m a little jaded, but I guess I always assumed the only reason someone would spend $339 on their partner for Valentine’s Day would be that he feels bad because he’s actually cheating on her. Considering the kind of Valentine’s Day presents I’ve gotten — I once had a man give me only an e-card that said “Happy Black History Month is almost over” (and then that was over) — I really am having a hard time believing that this survey could be actually true.


After all, Valentine’s Day is the worst. I mean, who cares? All it means is that all of your social-media platforms are going to be flooded with pictures of other people’s flowers, complete with captions about how they were gifted by BEST BOYFRIEND IN THE WORLD, while you watch your cat lick up the crumbs from the cookies that you’re eating alone in bed. (Just me?) Even when I’ve been in a relationship, I still haven’t cared about it much because I have a career and a life and other things to worry about besides showing off my relationship on Instagram to make the cat-crumbs people feel bad about themselves.

That being said, I’d still have to say that the only thing more ridiculous than Valentine’s Day is probably the fact that men are complaining about having to spend a little cash to celebrate it.


Yes, $339 is a lot of money. I’ve already said that, and really, really, I think that any woman who is not a treacherous, gold-digging sociopath would probably be happy with much less. But here’s the thing: Even if you are a man spending $339 while your partner spends only $64, you still should not be complaining about it. Why? Because you have already saved so much money by just not being a woman.


I mean, seriously — it is so much cheaper to be a man. How much do your haircuts cost, like $10? (I have to spend money on getting mine cut and colored, and then on buying someone else’s hair to strap to my head, just to be acceptable to society.) How much money do you spend getting your nails done? That’s right, none, and all of the time you save by not having to waste your life sitting under those little dryers like an idiot waiting for them to be done is probably being spent making more money.

Think about it: If you’re a man, you don’t even need to buy lip gloss. Do you know how much lip gloss us women have had to purchase throughout our lives? That s*** starts in like the fifth grade! Factor in that we’re also expected to wear mascara, eyeshadow, eyeliner, concealer (only men can have visible zits!), and a bunch of other garbage that sucks up our money and our time, and you might start to feel a little ridiculous about the fact that you have to get some flowers and a card.


Valentine’s Day is dumb, and I’ve always believed that the people who really care about it must be some really sad people with some really sad lives. But the only thing more pathetic than getting super jazzed for Valentine’s Day is getting super salty about it because you’re a man and you have to spend a couple of extra bucks. If you find yourself complaining, then stop it. Remember: You’ve saved hundreds if not thousands of dollars thanks to society allowing you to look just straight-up worse than we do.