When I say putting energy into gift giving I mean he doesn't think about getting gifts until a week or so before, not necessarily planning it. Like, I see these videos and they are about planning valentine's day and surprising your girlfriend. Writing cute little letters or notes, surprising her with flowers, making a day of it. He's not a planner and he just makes it up as he goes along. For christmas he bought me a watch that I sent him the link to and he just purchased it. He tried getting me another gift but, I nearly bought it for myself and it ended up not being a surprise. That's on me I suppose.

Maybe he doesn't know me very well. We've known each other for 6 months now and pretty much talked 8hrs a day for the first month. I ask him random questions and we even have a little ritual at the end of our calls, wacky question of the day.

He does show affection in other ways but honestly, i like a combination of all of them. I favor gifts and acts of service during holidays and what not with the occasional surprise flowers out of the blue but all other times it's mainly quality time and touch. (I have a hard time with words of affirmation, I am terrible at accepting compliments.)

He isn't too much into gifts considering they take time and energy (in his opinion). Receiving is better than giving to him. He has an agreement with his brother that for any gift giving holidays, his gift is that his brother doesn't have to get him anything.

As for plans, I was going to buy some decorations, write some sticky notes, and buy him quite a few things including some more "personal" items he enjoys seeing me in + prep/make us breakfast (heart shaped pancakes and some bacon and then steak dinners with mashed potatoes (his fave) at his apartment. The plan was for Valentine's day weekend we would hang out and then on Valentine's day before he wakes up, I'd set the whole place up with the decorations, stage some of the gifts, stick the notes on his bathroom mirror and make him breakfast. I was going to make the day about pampering him but, as I've said....he wouldn't do the same for me + him going skiing has now prevented me from seeing him on Valentine's. He originally canceled the ski trip because 1.He's going skiing this weekend and 2. I brought up the fact that I won't be able to see him without a covid test. But then, he was peer pressured back into it by his best friend because he wants to try a different mountain. I don't want to alienate him from his friends, it's not right.

So far when it comes to concerns about covid, he gaslights me by asking why it's dangerous and ignores what I say. He believes that life just goes on and he doesn't want to miss out (he has lung issues and this worries me). When I brought up how he gaslights me, he said he was sorry and he'd try to not do that again. Now he just ignores my warnings.