Women love Valentine’s Day. But it’s men who know how to navigate Feb. 14.
That’s according to the men. Actually, according to the men among the 1,000 people surveyed by international online shopping company Groupon about Valentines’ Day.
On the average, men rated their Valentine’s Day effort twice as highly as women rated their own. Before you start pointing out that some men expect smoochies just for not forgetting Valentine’s Day, consider … the guys might be right.
Who usually gets the Herculean task of muscling a reservation at that just right restaurant at sweet spot — long enough after work to clear the head and before the babysitter gets overtime rates? (Triple that problem in Miami around Miami International Boat Show week.)
Who usually knows their Valentine’s Day card selection will be parsed down to the syllable level by a panel of friends more thoroughly than NFL Network analysts picked apart the Atlanta Falcons’ fourth-quarter Super Bowl?
And who gets extorted on the flower buy, then looks nervously at the phone on Feb. 14 until getting the call that the flowers arrived at the office or wherever they can be shown off to peers?
Flowers alone can account for the difference in average Val Day spending between the genders: $178 men to $91 women last year. Either the economy is getting better or those surveyed wade in optimism because they expected to bump those numbers to $217 and $99 this year.
Married individuals plan to spend almost twice as much as single folks on Val Day, $168 to $87, which figures. Married people dragged into routines by work or kids often pack their romance into isolated pockets of time. They need to correct it on Valentine’s Day.
But the survey shows many folks maybe go overboard to impress that first Feb. 14 together. After their first Val Day together, the average spent per person drops from $233 to $149.
David J. Neal: 305-376-3559, @DavidJNeal
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