As Valentine’s Day approaches, a panel of Romance experts announced Thursday that only 8 days remain for guys to dump their girlfriends with impunity. After next Friday, the panelists suggested that severing an existing relationship will be deemed a cost-cutting measure and will be frowned upon by the general public.

“When you dump someone within a week of Valentine’s Day, it does more than suggest a callous detachment from the emotional consequences of your actions,” explained Grace Crowley, a former senior executive at the Hallmark Corporation. “It screams: I’m a cheap bastard who would rather save a hundred bucks than make a girl feel good.”

The panelists, featuring Crowley and assorted veterans of the Romance & Sentimentality industry, as well as consumer psychologists, therapists and historians of made-up holidays, were generally in agreement on what to expect this coming Valentine season.

“Over the next couple of weeks, I anticipate tears will be spent more freely than dollars,” proclaimed Roger Sanders, a professor of Consumer Behavior at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

According to Sanders, the upcoming  wave of heartbreak has one root: the receded economy.

“In typical a econoy, guys with lukewarm feelings for their girlfriends would rather spend $300 on flowers, a present and a fancy dinner than go through the drama of a breakup,” Sanders explained. “Similarly, there’s evidence that shows that in the late 90s, as tech stocks surged, some guys intentionally sought new girlfriends before Valentine’s Day, because, despite incurring the expense of the holiday, grateful sex was likely waiting. But with this economy mired with so much uncertainty, guys just aren’t willing to spend $300+ if they aren’t certain the relationship is worth it.”

On the surface this seems like more bad news for an already crippled marketplace. The greeting card, flower and restaurant businesses are expected to take brutal beatings from the wave of breakups expected this week. However, not all is lost, say the experts.

“Yes, high-end restaurants, 1-800-Flowers and the teddy bear industry are going to suffer,” said Rashida Johnson, an analyst at UBS specializing in the Romance and Easter Bunny markets. “However, dowstream, this wave of breakups offers real economic growth potential. In the short term, this gap in spending will be filled with increased consumption of tissues, ice cream, and Taco Bell. On the horizon, the personal fitness and self help industries can expect a boom as break-up induced calories are burnt.”

Bally’s stock is up 34% since the conclusion of the panel.

This was written by Chandler Goodman for The Daily Blank. It is licensed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. If you love it, please re-post the complete article (including this blurb) on your site. We'd be flattered.