If You Secretly Want A Valentine's Day Proposal, You're Not Alone, Science Says

Every Valentine's Day, my newsfeed gets clogged with three kinds of posts: the sappy "I love you" Valentine's Day shoutouts to people's significant others, unnecessarily bitter single people complaining about the fact that they're single on Valentine's Day, and finally, people sharing proposal pictures. The sappy "I love you" posts make me want to vomit, the bitter single people make me want to gouge my eyes out, but the Valentine's Day proposals leave me in a little bit of a grey area in terms of my feelings toward them. On one hand, a Valentine's Day proposal feels so cliche and overdone. But then, on the other hand, if you're going to pick a holiday to propose on, why not pick the most romantic day of the year?

In fact, a new study by Ebates found that a lot of people agree a Valentine's Day proposal isn't really that cheesy. Propeller Insights surveyed 1,008 American adults for Ebates, and they found that, surprisingly, a significant percent of Americans don't find a Valentine's Day proposal as cheesy as one might think. In fact, 48 percent of us agree that a Valentine's Day proposal is actually romantic. I mean, Valentine's Day is literally a national holiday dedicated to celebrating being in love... is it really that outlandish to imagine getting proposed to on that day? I don't think so.

Even if you aren't making the decision to spend the rest of your lives together on Valentine's Day, the study found that most of us (64 percent) still plan on celebrating the holiday.

So how should you go about celebrating? Don't worry, the survey looked into that, too. For the most part, they found that people like to celebrate with some yummy food. Almost half of the respondents agreed that they would be celebrating the most romantic night of the year with dinner at a nice restaurant. Slightly less than a third of them (28 percent) wanted to celebrate with a chill night in, and I'm assuming they're also going to be eating whilst in, so, like, again, people are celebrating with yummy food. Only a small 23 percent of people said they'll be celebrating with some sort of rom-com-style grand gesture, like "a horse-drawn carriage" (who can afford this???) or a "thoughtful gift."

In addition to just celebrating with each other, the survey also found that people are planning on treating their baes to some gifts. So if you're worried your SO might not treat you on V-Day, fret no more. Over half of the respondents (54 percent) admitted they were going to get a gift for their partner. And if you're one of those people not planning on buying a gift, you better watch out. Almost the same amount (49 percent) said they were also expecting a gift in return.

The most popular gift choice is, surprisingly, pretty simple: Over a third (34 percent) of Americans agree a night out would be an ideal gift. At an extremely close second in popularity is the classic chocolates, with slightly less than a third (32 percent) agreeing this would be the best Valentine's Day gift.

Following the chocolates in popularity is a bouquet of flowers, accompanied by a thoughtful card, with 26 percent of their respondents saying they'd like this. If you're planning on going down this route, it's probably a safe bet to go with roses. Why? Because the study found that 47 percent of the Americans who wanted flowers preferred roses. Another fun fact: We may give dudes grief for never listening to us, but the survey found that way more men (61 percent) know what their bae's favorite flower is than women (37 percent) do.

Finally, a small 23 percent of people said they'd love a gift card... but my only question is to where? Like, a sexy Victoria's Secret gift card I understand, or maybe even a spa gift card. But what if your partner gets you a gift card to, like, Starbucks? Speaking of, is there anything you shouldn't you get? Well, almost a quarter (24 percent) of Americans said a gym membership and tools were tied for the worst possible gifts. And yeah, those suck pretty badly.

None of these gift ideas may have sounded extravagant, and that's because, well, who can afford extravagant, honestly? The survey found almost half of Americans (44 percent) are still doing some saving following the holiday season, so they're not trying to spend anything more than $25. Only 13 percent said they were willing to splurge by buying over $50.

“Our research shows that Americans are interested in spending quality time together and buying meaningful gifts,” said Amit Patel, CEO of Ebates. “Ebates is the one-stop shop for Valentine’s Day, whether it’s saving on a romantic dinner, flowers or chocolates. We make it easy to get the perfect gifts for all your loved ones.”

Cheers to whatever you plan to do on Valentine's Day. Remember, just don't buy a drill for anyone, and you'll probably have a good day.

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