Valentine’s Day isn’t just an opportunity to tell your beloved how you really feel, and shower them with heart-shaped shit. It’s also the perfect time to conduct a myriad of surveys and polls to find out how the Great British Nation really feels about love. Here’s what we’ve learnt this week about the complex nature of the human heart.
1. It’s Mistress Day Today
Feeling blue because your errant part-time boyfriend will be taking his wife/actual girlfriend out on Valentine’s Day tomorrow? Don’t panic, because today is Mistress Day, meaning you’ll get all the spoils of war, without ever having to worry about whether he left his dirty socks on the floor. (Because women in relationships are always obsessed with the disposal of their boyfriend’s dirty socks … that’s right isn’t it?).
Mistress Day, for the uninitiated, is the day when feckless men the world over (71 per cent if a recent survey is to be believed) take their mistress to the pub to keep them sweet before the main event – V-Day with the wife. And while 42 per cent will be sorting out a hotel for their illicit encounter, and 35 per cent will be taking their bit on the side to the pub, the majority of men will then book a meal in an actual restaurant for their wife the following night. With tablecloths and a special wine man and everything.
Our take out from this: If you want your Valentine’s Day to include bread in a basket and a desert trolley, then marry the man. You’ll have to live with the fact that he spent the previous night in a Travelodge with his Camilla Parker Bowles. Alternatively if scampi and chips and the aforementioned Travelodge are your idea of a good night out (and no judgment if they are) let him marry someone else. The guy sounds like a bit of a tool.
2. Britons love a (crap) chat up line
A poll commissioned by brewers Greene King (me neither) revealed that 42 per cent of us quite like a chat up line. Not only that, we like quite like a shit chat up line. Here are the top five ranked (apparently by the great British public, btw, not us):
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Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?
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Hello Gorgeous
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Can I buy you a drink
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Get your coat, you’ve pulled
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How you doin’?
There were some more, but you get the idea, they’re all awful. The depressing fact is that they needed almost 2000 people to find this out, which seemed like a lot until I worked out that it’s only 0.00003 per cent of the population of the UK, all of whom have been a contestant in at least one episode of _Take Me Ou_t. Probably.
Our take out from this: 0.00003 per cent of the population of the UK bases its’ pulling technique on the collective works of Gok Wan and Paddy McGuinness
3. We’re all terrible houseguests
According to Splash Direct (they make bathrooms, FYI), the bathroom is where we’re all going for a shag these days. According to their research, half of us kinky, kinky Brits have had sex in our own bathroom. IMAGINE! And one in ten of us have had sex in a friend’s bathroom at a party, which, as everyone knows, is the worst thing you can do in a house with one toilet and more than seven guests.
Also, for anyone who’s keeping count, the bath is seen as the romantic of all the bathroom facilities, closely followed by the shower and the wet room. No word on how many people find their water tank incredibly sexy.
Our take out from this: If the thought of other people having sex in your house creeps you out, next time you have a house party, cross one in ten of your friends off the invite list. Or make everyone wee in a bucket in the garden. Job done.
4. Morphsuits: still a thing
If you’re single, and moodily thinking about all your coupled-up friends, having sex in bathrooms and cheating on each other in Travelodge’s, don’t panic, because there’s a new dating craze in town that’s going to Blow. Your. Mind.
Apparently, potential couples have taken to meeting for a first date in full-body morph suits, allowing them to break the ice, and get to know each other’s body language and personality before the big reveal. If it sounds like claustrophobic gimp hell, then…that’s entirely fair enough, it probably is. But if it sounds like just your sort of brand of organised fun, then Morph Suits and My Single Friend are holding a MorphDating event tomorrow night. Just make sure you send us some pictures, pleasethanks.
Our take out from this: We have nothing to add.
5. Men continue to buy shit Valentine’s gifts, but at least they get a discount
A survey by daily deals search engine Dealzippy.co.uk has revealed revealed that LOTS of men have been making the most of online discount sites to get a bargain gift for their beloved.
This makes sense, I guess. We’re in an age of austerity, who has £50 to sink on some marked-up flowers and a box of Thorntons chocolates? Well, now you don’t need to, when £17 will get you a three-course all-you-can-eat buffet at the Hilton Docklands. It was also revealed today that Lidl are selling a dozen red roses for just £3. One young man spoke to the Daily Mail about this development: ‘They're so cheap it means I can give one rose to 12 different women.’ So now you know.
Our take out from this: Never trust a man who buys you flowers from Lidl.
Follow Rebecca on Twitter @rebecca_hol
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.