Galentine’s is better than Valentine’s Day as a Cardiff student, and here’s why

Valentine’s Day is either one of your most anticipated holidays of the year, or a day that fills you with a small amount of impending dread. Or that’s how its been painted for many years, anyway.

If you’re single, the idea has prevailed that you must not have any plans and will likely be found sitting around listening to heartbreak anthems, whilst your taken friends are being treated to lavish dinners, weekend trips and low lit cocktail bars.

But in recent years, the notion of a Galentine’s Day has emerged. A way to reclaim the celebration of love, even if you find yourself without a partner.

Galentine’s Day tends to be celebrated on the 13th February (but that doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate tomorrow too). With this earlier celebration comes many reasons why women think that Galentine’s is better than Valentine’s Day.

Galentine’s is a day for the girlies to come together and appreciate the friendship, stability and long term platonic love that deserves to be celebrated and treated with the same importance that romantic love receives. And you definitely do not have to worry about being stood up!

In Cardiff, there are so many things that you can do making it Galentine’s better than Valentine’s.

The first being that there are so many more activities to do when you take the romance away. Galentine’s Day can be celebrated in so many different ways. You and your girls could go pottery painting, go for a cute brunch, have a spa night in with face masks and movies. You could go for drinks and dress up, treating each other to a date night experience or order in a takeaway and get cozy.

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Galentine’s takes away the pressure to look good for your partner, and instead the focal point pivots to looking and feeling good for yourself. The best takeaways definitely include Zi’s Cafe, Taco Bull, and Mowgli’s. Activity wise you cannot go wrong with puppy yoga in Cathays or pottery painting at Peggy Pots.

Galentine’s is also better because of the significantly lower cost – especially in Cardiff. Although Cardiff is a cheaper uni city being a student in your teens and early 20s does not always call for extravagant romantic dinners, classy bottles of wine and glamorous outfits involved in the stereotypical celebration of Valentine’s Day.

Let alone the pressure to buy gifts for your significant other, such as flowers, jewellery and chocolate, it can all add up pretty quickly and before you know it your monthly food budget is spent in one evening.

Choosing to celebrate Galentine’s instead takes away this expectation of splashing out, focusing more on spending quality time with your friends. Instead you can do at home things like board games or maybe even making your own murder mystery, including dreaded exes.

Women know how to celebrate each other. One of the main reasons I prefer Galentine’s Day is that my friends know me, inside and out. They have seen us through breakups, deadline seasons, happy and sad moments. They definitely will know whether you are a gold or silver jewellery girl ( A key detail many male partners seem to miss), your favourite sweet treats, your favourite songs and movies.

Galentine’s brings to light how much joy, care and appreciation wrapped up in female friendship. The stability and long term platonic love that deserves to be celebrated and treated with the same importance that romantic love receives. This is why I think that Galentine’s Day is better than Valentines Day.

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