Everybody wants a box of chocolates and a long-stemmed rose

[venta]

Yesterday prezzybox.com, who are usually quite sensible and useful people, sent me an email advertising their range of "personalised gifts" for Christmas.

Top of their list was a Personalised Me To You Book (in the category "Romance", in case you aren't getting the picture).

"This Me to You personalised book is the perfect way to show someone special how much you care. Each page has a romantic quote or a picture of Tatty Teddy. It is sure to make someone smile."

Now, I like pictures of raggedy grey teddy bears as much - or even slightly more - than is healthy in someone over the age of eight. However, if someone gave me one of these books I think they would find it rammed somewhere extremely unexpected.

By buying someone this personalised gift, I'm showing exactly how much I care. Just enough to type my and their names into some boxes, add my personal message of up to one hundred characters, and click a button. You could get 40% more caring into a tweet, and that is surely the least romantic form of communication ever.

I usually save this rant up for Valentine's Day, but off-the-peg romance is an oxymoron. Occasionally - very occasionally - you might find a card, or a poem, which so exactly expresses the sentiment you want to convey that you can't possibly better it yourself. But, realistically, it isn't going to happen very often.

If you want to give someone a cutesome book of bears and romantic quotes, buy a book of bears and scrawl your own quotations onto it. Possible pausing with the marker pen to add hats/moustaches/glasses/bondage gear/gruesome injuries to the bears, to taste. I'd do this. Most people I know would, I think, do this in preference to expressing their love in one hundred characters of plastic conformity.

However the sales of one-size-fits-all hearts-and-flowers romance, peaking around mid-February, suggest this is not the norm. Generic romance is a crime. Do not accept it. Demand a genuine expression from your suitor.

Comments

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

I must admit I'm tempted to get you one.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Watch it. You have to go to sleep some time.

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

Actualy I'd *LOVE* to see your reaction if someone you really cared about did get you one of these or similar as a tongue in cheek joke, but presented it straight faced !

[ebee.livejournal.com]

I demand a suitor !
I've also found that'd be easier if I didn't share that above sentiments. The most romantic thing done for me so far was someone staying up all night Reading the scriptof a film to find the name/artist of a song Id mentioned in passing that I liked and struggled to track down. And blearily eyed informing me the nextday.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

But everybody knows that's how it goes...

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I always think of romantic gifts as 'something that one would not take the trouble to do/buy for oneself'. Which I suppose would cover crappy 'personalised' books, but I still wouldn't be impressed. It's the 21st century equivalent of getting your sweetie's name iced in flowing script on a Thornton's cookie, I suppose. Cute, but I'd rather have homebaked cookies where the icing's a bit splodgy.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

My problem with these things isn't the mass-produced-ness, it's the pretence that it's not.

If you find a nice book or card that makes you smile, and you think will make the other person smile, why not. Not everyone is artistic, and you can always write something inside as well. But then don't try to claim that it's personal!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's fair. It's not like I object to the idea of giving non-hand-made, non-customised gifts. It is just the claim that something like this is not mass-produced.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

The ones that really upset me, for some reason, are the ones that offer to put your name into a classic story. venta's adventures in wonderland, and so on. Feels like cruelty to books, although I haven't quite worked out why.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes! I find those offensive too :)

I think it's just rude to suggest to, say, Pride and Prejudice that in order to make it worth reading you have to engage the reader by putting their name in it.

I've never read one, so I don't quite know how they work, but I'm assuming it's just a search-and-replace on character names. In which case it just seems... well kind of rubbish, really. Also Wrong.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

However many times you put my name into Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll still did not write it about me.

This is even more painfully apparent in books with skinny dark-haired heroines...

[triskellian]

Interesting example you've chosen there ;-) How would you know if you'd read a 'personalised' version of P&P?

I s'pose we could have Lizzy* falling in love with Beth, or something, but given your multiple names that could be a whole new kind of confusing...

*Lizzie? I can never remember which she is. -ie seems more likely, but I vaguely recall checking and discovering it was -y.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Fair point ;)

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

Ewww....It may impress an 8yr old and on the romance score, that would be so wrong !

I actualy seem to prefare Valentines being a single, gives me a chance to send stuff to friends and try and make them smile, plus the odd thing to people i may care a little more about....Then again i like excuses....Holidays, "saw this, thought of you", Birthdays, And happy wednesday works well too when you just can't think of a better (or worse, or maybe just more plauseable) excuse.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Where can I get one of you? I'd love to get little 'just because' presents and treats!

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

Awwww, its just an aspect of me !

Given reasonable time and being in a happy state, it is supprising how daft and soppy i can be. Used to love living in London and wandering round the shops at lunch, far easier to get inspiration back then.....Hell I once made suzi an Advent Callendar as being vegan the chockie ones were out....Ambition got the better or my and my Notre Damn inspired window idea didn't quite work, but even with little draws it worked well.

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

Would it be a case of "tonstant weader fwowed up"? Come on, you know that quotation.