Today, celebrating romantic love is highly encouraged in the Western world.  Because we perceive love as an ideal, when found … we’ll go to great lengths to cocoon and nourish it.

In fact, gift-giving and other forms of consumerism have become expected parts of expressing romantic love.

In the nineteenth century, personal gifts such as a lock of hair or hand-made cards were expressions of romantic attachment. Today, feelings of love and experiences of romance are tightly intertwined with the consumption of commodities and services like expensive restaurants, cocktail bars, jewellery, flowers, or weekend getaways.

This episode takes us through some of the most common acts of consumption that have become associated with romantic love.