Valentine's Day survival kit for girls dating unromantic 'cavemen'

Valentine’s Day is upon us! To say that Kenyan men are not good at Valentine's Day is an understatement! For many Kenyan women, the day is nothing but twenty-four hours of discontentment and frustration.

Very few Kenyan men will go the extra mile to make Valentine’s Day special for their women. They can’t think beyond the cliché flowers and a card. Flowers and a card don’t sound too bad, considering the fact that some men don’t do anything at all.

A lot of people will tell you that it is the thought that counts and you should be grateful for any romantic gesture he attempts, no matter how small or cheap.

True, but from my own experience, it can be incredibly hard to appreciate flowers and restaurant reservations when your peers are getting luxury vacations, plots, vitz and even range rovers.

I learnt the hard way about the sure-fire way to avoid Valentines Day disappointment; stay off social media! Even when I had incredibly sweet boyfriends who went above and beyond and came up with well-though-out Valentines plans, I would log onto social media and my boyfriend’s sweet gestures would pale in comparison.

Yes, there are a few gentleman out there who take Valentine's Day very seriously and are not shy of letting the world know the many grand romantic gestures they have done to make their loved ones feel special.

On Valentine's Day, social media will be awash with pictures of couples expressing their love for each other, flashy gifts, chocolates, sentimental love notes and elaborate date nights.

Women from all walks of life will be recounting the wonderful time they had with their significant others and how surprised they were and how special their men made them feel.

Needless to say, this is not the kind of things you want to be seeing if your partner didn’t bother to put in any effort. Every post will be a painful reminder of how disappointing your relationship is.

Even if your boyfriend puts in the effort, you don’t want to read about how a woman was surprised with a romantic luxury vacation, when all you got was a sentimental text message! At this day age of social media obsession, it is hard not to struggle with comparison and jealousy. These feelings of inadequacy increase tenfold on Valentine's Day.

If you know you struggle with comparison and feelings of inadequacy, the best thing to do is to remove the sources of comparison. Take a break from social media for a day or two, until this while Valentine’s Day fuss is over.

You are not doing yourself any favours when you linger on the best versions of other people’s seemingly perfect relationships. If your boyfriend is not the romantic type, even though you wish he were, save yourself the anguish and log off.

At the end of the day, remember that you know yourself and your situation best and it is unfair to yourself and your relationship to compare the carefully curated lives of other couples to your own.

If you have a good boyfriend who genuinely loves and cares for you, don’t create needless dissatisfaction by feeding envy of other people’s relationships. Social media is vicious. It only shows you the highlight reel of other couples relationship. You don’t know what goes on behind closed doors.