a heart full of love

Dear Camille,

There is a holiday called Valentine's Day coming up shortly. And, well, it seems to be more confusing than it used to be. I feel lame not doing anything for that certain someone, but yet don't want to go over the top on the romantic side, and ultimately am lacking any ideas of what I should do. Do you have any advice?

clueless in love

dear clueless,

ah, valentine's day. the ultimate marketing scheme. It's worse than christmas.

i have three solutions:

1. if your goal is not to lead him on, make an easy, generic gift. not a thoughtless one--but one that you can give to both the certain someone as well as your other friends (including me). for example, make a CD or bake treats. then, make sure that certain someone knows they were not the only recipient of the gift. this way, they will know you thought about them on valentines day and it wasn't a misleading gift.
2. if you want a more personalized gift specifically for the certain someone, give the gift that keeps on giving: chocolate. or candy. it's thoughtful (especially when it's nice truffles or the like), especially if you just include a card or note. the note will be the best part of the gift, anyway.
3. just make your own valentines and cookies and be happy. who needs a certain someone?

if it were up to me, i probably wouldn't even give a gift. i think valentine's day is a sorry excuse to go buy something pink, fluffy and covered in hearts. instead, i would use it as an excuse for a date. and be careful if you go out to eat or to a movie. p-town is guaranteed to be packed with tons of twitterpated students. instead, do a stay-at-home activity like decorate valentines cookies, watch a movie, play games, or heart-attack someone.

good luck.