The excessive commercialization of love
Love is a big business. Brisk sales of perfumes, jewelry, branded bags, and fully-booked motels. Love has become a big business. The intensity of one's feelings is often measured in direct proportion to the cost of Valentines gifts.
In these times of secular materialism, one's love is often gauged by the amount spent for the beloved. It is now a compelling need to splurge and manifest the degree of one's affections by the value of gifts given. The business world has transformed love into a transactional interaction, where big money has to be spent to make the beloved happy. We just have finished with all the Christmas expenses, now we need to spend again for Valentines. Those who refuse to go along this crazy trend would be branded as stingy, thoughtless and selfish. Love has become an obligation, it becomes a burden. It should not be.
I have a client who is surprising his wife with a new car, and his girlfriend with a new condo. The funny thing about it is that the wife and the paramour are cousins and close friends. Nowadays, the trend is that love must have a price tag. My neighbor told me that he and his wife are telling their daughters ( two gorgeous, tall and shapely young ladies) to insist their suitors must have at least five of the seven C's: car, condo, cash, credit cards, career, certificate of permanent employment, and ''cara'' ( handsome). I hastily added the eighth C, character.
On Valentines Day, well-off lovers have the obligatory dinner date, with candle light, caviar and champagne. They book the most expensive Valentines Dinner Show in five star hotels, not here, but in Paris, New York or Hong Kong at the very least. Flowers from Amsterdam and France, wines from Germany or Italy and bags from Paris and New York. Can you imagine the prices of bags, ranging from Hermes Blue Crocodile Birkens, worth 250,000 US dollars and the most expensive Mouauad 1001 Nights Diamond Purse costing 3.8 million US dollars. And shoes, ranging from a Walter Steiger worth 1000 US dollars to Smart Weitzman costing 3 million US dollars?
Filthy rich matrons and ostentatiously wealthy gays and bisexuals are reportedly gifting their kept men and toy boys with wines, watches and shoes, cars and even condos. For wines, a Domaine Leroy Richebourge Grand Cru vintage 1949 is $5,921 and the most expensive is the Screaming Eagle Cabernet, vintage 1992, which costs a whopping half a million dollars per bottle. For perfumes, an Ambre Top Kapiu, 60 ml is worth 400 dollars and the most expensive is Clive Christian Imperial Majesty, which is 435,000 US dollars per bottle. For shoes, the prices range from 5000 US dollars, Aubery Diamond Studded, to a stunning two million dollars, Tom Ford custom made shoes by Jason Arasheben.
Don't be scandalized or feel outraged, but there are really lovers who could afford to burn their money, in the name of love, sex or romance, like gifting them with super expensive cars, ranging from the most expensive Bugatti, $12.5 million, to a Lamborghini Veneno, costing $4.5M. Ferrari Pinintaria Sergio worth $3M.
Ferrari Pnintaria Sergio. Let us not get jealous at those who can afford to splurge in the name of love or the flesh. Let's work harder so that we can.
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