Why More Women Say Galentine’s and Palentine’s Day Feel More Meaningful
The social phenomenon of celebrating platonic relationships and platonic soulmates is on the rise, with searches for ‘Galentine’s Day’ averaging a +556% surge every February and searches for ‘Palentine’s Day’ up 238% between Feb 2024 and Feb 20251.
The concept of singles celebrating the love between their friends comes as no surprise a s a recent survey2 by the greeting’s card marketplace, thortful, reveals that people say they have stronger friendships when single, and 28% say friendships improve when single.
There’s plenty of love to give, especially for the girls, as their survey shared that women’s friendships improve more than men’s when single (33% Female vs 23% Male).
Even women in relationships celebrate and find celebrating Palentine’s or Galantine’s more fulfilling and meaningful.
thortful spoke to women who are in long term relationships on why they choose to celebrate Palentine’s and/or Galentine’s day, despite having a romantic partner.
Libby Windle from Doncaster shares that celebrating Galentine’s feels more meaningful to her because, “Now we’ve all got little ones, we hardly get the chance to get together so we always try to make an effort for this and do something lovely together. Plus, I feel this is less “cringe” than V-day and I feel as though there’s less pressure with this key date too
It’s a good excuse to get together with the girls and celebrate the amazing friendship we have.”, she adds.
Friendships have been known to improve wellbeing, and according to a 2023 study, stable, healthy friendships are crucial for our well-being and longevity.
Libby reinforces this, explaining, “I love spending time with my friends and I always feel so good when we have this time together, as like I said before, we don’t get to do this often and I think real friendships as you get older are so hard to find and maintain so it’s important to have this time together to create memories.”
Ronja Oster, 34, from Manchester, thinks we don’t tell our friends enough how much they mean to us, and says Galentine’s means more as “I live with my partner, and we do lots of nice things together, so we don’t need an extra day with overpriced flowers to celebrate our love and relationship.”
Amy Gallimore, 31 from Stockport says the Palentine’s celebrations begun once her and her friends stopped decentring men, adding, “when we were in our mid twenties we really started to make that extra effort in our friendships as we decentred men from our lives, even those that did have partners always made time for Galentine’s/ girl time.”
She continues, “I feel so lucky to have such wonderful, successful, funny, and kind friends/women – I always come away feeling in awe of the things they have had to go through and overcome, and how much they inspire me in my own life. I come away feeling loved and eternally grateful for female friendships.”
Celebrating Palentine’s day not only makes us feel good, but appears to also be a cheaper alternative – a win win for many. The average brit spends around £52 on their partner for Valentine’s Day4 , yet these women report more meaningful meet ups whilst spending as little as £10 for Palentine’s Day.
Ronja shares, “For Valentine’s we’ll maybe go for a nice dinner, so max 100 pound.
My previous Galentine’s were at friends’ houses, so I only spend like 10 pound to help with some bits and snacks.”
Amy adds, “I wouldn’t say I really spend much (on Palentine’s day). I’ll usually get the girls some flowers delivered or take some chocolates or wine to the meal, but its usually something we do at each others houses rather than go out for. It feels so much more cosy and personal this way and the girlies love a tablescape/ some love-themed decor. maybe like £20 if I had to put a number on it”
Amy concludes by revealing why her platonic relationships are so worth celebrating, saying, “They really set the bar high which is probably a reason why I’m still single!”
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