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Written by forkparty

Love is in the air whether you like it or not. Around this time of year, girls tend to get all hot and bothered by the prospect of Valentine’s Day even though it isn’t even a real holiday. I don’t know why but women can’t seem to understand that Valentine’s Day is a holiday propagated by greeting card, flower, and chocolate companies. As a result, you, the man, statistically anyway, must purchase her love with gifts from the aforementioned companies.  They want stuff for Valentine’s Day; and not just any stuff, stuff that makes them feel “special” and “loved”. There are very strict guidelines that you must follow and if you purchase any of the following gifts, the odds that you won’t have a significant other for the 15^th are very, very good.

Lingerie

Lingerie is one of those gifts that isn’t really for her. Granted, Valentines Day is just a day where if you pull everything off correctly, you have a 100% chance of getting laid. I know it makes sense in your head that $80 lace undies is completely appropriate for Valentine’s Day but remember that women want to feel special on this day. What lingerie does is reassures them of the fact that they are nothing more than a sexual object to you and that won’t make them feel special at all.

Flowers From a Gas Station

Gas stations stock up on flowers because they know idiots like you are either going to completely forget Valentine’s Day or just put off buying a gift until the very last minute. Girls are smart… sometimes… well, at least they know that your bouquet of roses wrapped in newspaper and completely lacking any babies breath was purchased on your way home from work while you stopped for gas. These gas station attendants have no idea how to arrange a bouquet and although it may seem ridiculous to you, women hate that shit.

Gym membership

The gym membership has to be one of the all-time biggest screw-ups in gift buying. Instead of getting her a year at Gold’s gym, maybe you should have just slapped her across the face and told her to “go for a run, fatty”.

Cheesy Heart-Shaped Jewelry

Yeah, the jewelers have been advertising this completely cheesy heart-shaped pendant for the last few weeks but that doesn’t mean that anybody actually wants it. If you can get a piece of jewelry that is appropriate for any day, go for that instead of the cubic zirconia heart-shaped pendant and your chances of getting any will skyrocket. Think about it, If she’s ever had a boyfriend on any Valentine’s Day in the past, she probably already has a cheesy heart-shaped pendant and she really doesn’t need another.

Kitchen Appliances

Nothing cements your significant other’s attachment to the kitchen like appliances. Has a blender ever made you feel special? Has a food processor ever conveyed somebody’s undying love for you? If the answer is no then your girl doesn’t want it for Valentine’s Day. Take it back to Sears.

Bathroom Scale

Oh my god you did not. Seriously, a scale to weigh anything, even drugs, is strictly the worst present you can get anybody for anything. Even if you’re a alleged lover has just dropped 60 pounds and you want to get her a scale as a means of congratulating that effort, to her it just looks like she needs to lose some more. Personally, I don’t understand why in the world anybody would need a scale. If you’re fat, you can tell without the scale and no degree of accuracy is going to change that.

A Maid Outfit

The maid outfits or any other sexy costume is another one of those presents that’s really more for you than it is for her. I really have to reiterate the fact that these sorts of presence don’t make her feel special, they make you feel special. It might get to the point where you do get to slip her into some sexy costumes, but you’ll certainly never get there if you are giving them to her as the Valentines Day gifts. If you make her dinner, buy her a nice bunch of roses, and get her an incredibly personal and loving gift, then it might be time to break out the French maid costume. Best of luck to you though because I never saw the inputs as being worthy of the output.

Cooking Classes

Cooking classes are a great way of telling your significant other that they suck at cooking. Cookbooks may be a little lighter but they still aren’t recommended. Anything you give her to mold her into the person you want her to be, just forget it. You want to make her feel special as she is, not as you want her to be.

Cosmetic Surgery

I know it might seem pretty obvious that cosmetic surgery is a terrible gift get somebody you love but some people just don’t know. What you’re really saying is “yeah, I think you’re beautiful but you’d be more beautiful with a breast enhancement and some lypo”. Not so subtle implications that you think your lover isn’t perfect are terrible ideas for any day and will probably grant you a knee to the bollocks rather than a mouth to the same area.

Flowers from the Front Yard

By all means go out to wild fields and spend a couple hours picking flowers for the object of your affection, but if you have completely forgotten about Valentine’s Day until just prior to opening the door, forget about picking the daffodils from the front yard. Yeah, she can tell. If you forgot Valentine’s Day, don’t go reaching for the most ridiculous and simple gift you can find, instead make your lover feel special by cooking her a magnificent dinner and rubbing her feet down or something. Picking flowers from yours, or anybody else’s garden for that matter, is a surefire way to not get laid for the rest of the month.

A Venereal Disease

So, if everything else went right and you do end up getting laid on Valentine’s Day make sure that you are clean. Transmitting the present that that Saigon hooker gave you while on business is the last thing your significant other wants on Valentine’s Day. If you find yourself in this position, you would probably be better off just telling her that you’ve been unfaithful and leaving. She may be really quite upset now but when she realizes that you have a VD that she doesn’t, she might even thank you for not having sex with her. I bet it wouldn’t be the first time too! ZING!

A Card

Greeting cards are the embodiment of impersonal feelings. If you get all hot and bothered in your significant other’s presence, then you should be able to put your feelings onto paper. Greeting cards exist solely because people are too lazy to write how they really feel or just plain don’t care. By all means make your own card or buy a blank one, but make sure that you actually write something heartfelt and make the person that you’re giving it to feel special.

Any Hair Removal System

Nair, razors and coupons for laser treatments are all absolutely terrible gifts to get any woman. If she has a problem with body hair, fine, but don’t get her anything that reminds her of that problem for Valentine’s Day. You want to make your significant other feel absolutely beautiful exactly how they are. Chances are that if you know about her problems with hair sprouting out in embarrassing places, then so does she. The last thing she wants to be reminded of on Valentine’s Day is her mustache.

Dumping Them

Don’t dump anybody on Valentine’s Day because that’s just not cool. Remember, even though it may just be another day to you, girls actually give a shit.  One day it will come back to bite you in the butt because what goes around comes around. Seriously, if you dump anybody on Valentine’s Day, odds are that you were having second thoughts about the relationship prior to this date and you should have done something about it sooner.

“Oral” Guidance

If you get her a book called “Head: You’re Doing it Wrong” you are an idiot. On the other hand, if you get her a book called “Dogging Chicks Out: You’re Doing it Wrong” and spend the evening hours reading it followed up by a good 10-20 minutes of executing what you’ve just learned, she might be more inclined to look up some really nice techniques for you on the Internet.

Personally, I have completely succeeded in convincing my girlfriend that Valentine’s Day is a day that flower companies just want to get paid for. As a result, I don’t have to buy her anything. I do, however, make sure that I have a three-course meal and a seven-dollar a bottle of wine ready for her come dinnertime. Afterward, we might watch a terrible romantic comedy but because of all my hard work and dedication to making the significant other feel special and loved, I can usually persuade her to put on the stockings and give me a Valentine’s Day present as well.

Written by JetSetCD

It’s easy to make stupid tourist mistakes in London, England; the city is huge and there is tons to see. But if your first language is English and you’ve ever been to a big city before, you have no excuse for making a few easily-avoided oopsies. We’ve covered the five absolute worst mistakes, but we know there are a score more.

So without further ado, here is the Jaunted guide of What Not To Do In London: The Top 5 Tourist Mistakes.

Check them out, after the jump.

5. DON’T confuse Tower Bridge with London Bridge

So you’re tempted to stroll along the Embankment by the Thames singing “London Bridge is falling down” to youself, but dude—the original London Bridge is long gone. In fact, it’s in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, because they bought it from London in the 1970s and installed it in their town, and that’s still not even the clogged-with-buildings historical version of the Bridge mentioned in the song. Rest assured, there is still a London Bridge over the Thames, but it’s nothing special and hard to distinguish from any other bridge. Just don’t point at the bridge in the picture above and claim that this one is London Bridge, because it’s just not. That’s Tower Bridge, and it always has been.

4. DON’T drive, walk or stand on the wrong side of the street and sidewalk

The cars might drive on the left side of the street in Britain and every pedestrian crosswalk may be painted with a “LOOK LEFT” or “LOOK RIGHT” to remind you of this fact, but the directions don’t apply to everything. Take, for instance, walking on a sidewalk. The pedestrian traffic flow is on the right, and you should also be aware of escalator etiquette: it’s stand on the right and walk on the left there.

3. DON’T shop on Oxford or Regent Streets

The only good thing that Regent Street has going for it is the large Apple store with its free WiFi signal that leaks out. Otherwise, these streets are a crush of confused tourists shopping at H&M or other chain stores they could usually find at home. If you are however desperate to do some shopping like this, you can find the same shops in nicer environs and less congestion on Kensington High Street or Kings Road. Slightly related tip: don’t wear “Mind the Gap” or Union Jack shirts fresh from purchasing them as souvenirs; you become a target for pickpockets and thieves, because you are obviously a confused tourist.

2. DON’T go to Buckingham Palace hoping to see the Queen, or even thinking that she’s there

Just because the Union Jack flag is flying high above the Palace doesn’t mean that they whole royal family is sitting in there, having tea or something and gazing out at you. The Queen herself is only in if you see more guards wearing their red jackets and huge hats than usual and the royal standard is raised on the flagpole too, and it looks like this. When we were there last week, she was not in, and yet hoards of tourists were clinging to the gate and staring up at the window expectantly, and for a while too!

1. DON’T pay to go to a museum

The majority of London’s museum are completely free, and sort of de facto hangout places for locals even. If your plans include any of these big museums: Tate Modern, British Museum, the National Gallery, Tate Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum, National Portrait Gallery, National Maritime Museum, and the Imperial War Museum (and many more!), then you can just walk in and have a great time without laying down a single sterling. These should exhaust you pretty well, so that you hopefully aren’t even tempted to pay the exorbitant 16.50 GBP ($26) per person entrance fee to the Tower of London or the 7 GBP to go upstairs in Tower Bridge. Just say no.

What are your London DOs and DON’Ts? Have you done any of the above and loved or regretted it? Let us know in the comments!

[Photos: Jaunted, The Rocketeer, and Jaunted]