Around this time of year articles about the best Valentine’s Day date ideas start popping up everywhere. Magazines, newspapers, blogs, even HerCampus is no exception to these swarms of where you should go and for what reasons. If you are one of the many people that cannot spend Valentine’s Day on a tropical beach, an expensive restaurant, or drinking champagne in front of a romantic fireplace in a cabin in the woods, then you may have had your experience of bad Valentine’s Day dates. Rather than tell you where to spend your Valentine’s Day with your significant other this list will, more accommodatingly, tell you the top five places to avoid.
#5 Fast Food Joints
Okay we can all agree times are tough financially, and for a first date Burger King, Wendy’s or Micky D’s is not (always) frowned upon. But for a Valentine’s Day date, it might be a better idea to splurge a little bit, at least to go to your neighborhood diner. Being that going “dutch” is completely socially acceptable, regardless of your gender or sexual orientation, if each party at least has $10 on the meal there is a wide variety of other eateries you can afford and you won’t have to worry about anxious children screaming for kids’ meals.
#4 Strip Club/ Go-Go Bar
Unless you are working a late shift as a dancer, bartender or bouncer, and just want your partner there with you (or if they work there also) it’s probably not a good idea to spend Valentine’s Day at a strip club or go-go bar with your significant other. There is nothing wrong with frequenting these types of places with your partner if you are confident in your relationship, but if either of you are at all feeling possessive, controlling or insecure on Valentine’s Day, it’s probably not a good choice. Plus a strip club or go-go bar is not usually the most romantic of places.
#3 Motel
For many couples Valentine’s Day usually involves some type of intimacy. If you both live with your parents, have little kids running around the house, or just want a change of setting to rekindle the flame, the last place you should turn to is a motel or motor lodge. Hotels, although slightly more expensive, are a lot cleaner and astetically pleasing. If money is an issue utilizing websites like Priceline and Orbitz to book a room in advance can snag you a nice hotel room for about the same price as the dingy local motel on the highway. If you love or at least like your Valentine, don’t bring them some where that they’ll have to walk out of cautiously because of the embarrassment of being there.
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#2 A Rowdy Bar
A bar or lounge is not a bad place to take your Valentine if that is a setting you both enjoy. However, a crowded and rowdy bar is not a good choice. This is where I found myself last year on Valentine’s Day and it was a disaster. The person I was dating at the time accidentally got dragged, literally, into a fight by his dreads. Everyone was drunk and the place was packed so the fight that started out between two females expanded to almost everybody in the bar. It flooded out into the four-way-intersection outside the bar and I ended up having to grab everyone I was there with and run to the car before the cops came. Save yourself the trouble.
# 1 The Home of a Third-Wheel
We’ve all done it, brought a friend along as a third-wheel on a date, have had our partner’s friend come along, or have been a third-wheel ourselves. Sometimes it’s fun and sometimes it’s not, but spending Valentine’s Day at a third-wheel’s house with your boo is not a good decision. Remember the saying “misery loves company”? Well that is the third-wheel’s name, misery. If they are passively (or outwardly) bitter about being single or alone, they will make both of you, feel it in the worse way. Even if the third-wheel is happy to be single they might push that “single pride” on you too much, or worse, on your Valentine. The only exception to this would be if the third-wheel is on suicide watch, or just experience a death or both.