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February 14, 2026 15 mins

Galentine's Day, Valentine's Day and...Mistress Day? We unpack what Mistress Day is and how it got started in this classic episode.

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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Smitha and welcome Stuff Never
Told You production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
And welcome to.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Our Valentine's Day episode classic by.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
This expression, that's one of those kind of ironic Valantine.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Oh yeah, yes, well, there are a couple of episodes
that were on my mind for this. Uh and one
was the episode that you did Samantha on Mistress Day.
Oh yes, which is around the same time I've got

(00:52):
Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day, Mistress Day. Uh. So I feel
like every topic we come up with for Valentine's Day
has traditionally been kind of a darker.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Day anti Valentine's Apparently.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
A lot of them are as I was finding looking
through these classics. But please enjoy and have happy Valentine's
Day and Valentine's.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Day, Happy Valentine.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Hey, this is Anny and Smitha.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
I'm welcome to stuff I've Never Told You production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Okay, so for this Monday Mini Annie, we need to
start off with a timestamp, which is we are recording
on February eighth, twenty four and this will be released
though on Monday, February twelfth, for if you happen to
listen on the day of This is when we were
recording it. If you're listening much long further down the road,

(02:05):
you're like, why are you talking about Valentine's Day? Well,
now you know why, because yes, Valentine's Day is just
around the corner as you're listening to this. Of course
we had to do something that was related to this
day of love or day of commercially giving, so we
can judge our partners to on what they gave us
or didn't give us row food. By the way, if

(02:28):
anybody was asking, always food or a puppy, I'm not
adding to that list.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Puppy not for me. Have you seen pizza as a
breakup pizza?

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yes, they break it up. Break it's like broken, it's broken.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
And the one I said, we've like swirled, we've gone
from Valentine's Day is all that romance to like, let's
just stop protecting what I think.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
It's kind of background being salty valentied essentially as you
were saying. But like the one I saw had the
box with the name to the person is sorry about that?

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yes, good luck.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Can you imagine if you're a delivery person like, whoo, well, I.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
This is like the equivalent of when you're in middle
school and you don't want to break up with them,
so your friend goes and tells you, hey, so and
so it is breaking up with you, sorry, and then
moving on, and then that friend really loving that moment
because you know she gets they get to be a
part of it even though they are not a part
of this drama. I feel like this is that equivalent.
So if anyone, if like middle schoolers get a credit

(03:35):
card or get their parents' credit card, they're going to
do this.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
I can see just like sending this to people for.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
I mean, if I get a free pizza out of it,
that's not bad.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
It's better than.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Just being broken up with.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
That's yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
I'm just saying I haven't had a Pizza Hut pizza
in a very long time, so I don't know the quality,
but I'm just saying a pizza a win is a win.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
At a certain point, yes, I mean definitely, I'd be
like Pizza Hut, But then I'd be like, all right, sponsor, praps.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Sponsor, apparently we need to have it.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
I'm just kidding.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
So with all of that, you know what, because we
have started one rabbit hole, we're gonna do another one,
so y'all can come with me into this very interesting
romantic tale of Mistress Day, which I didn't know anything about.
But Annie, you said you knew something about.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
I had heard of it. I think we had done
we'd done something on Ashley Madison. Yes, and it came up,
which I know you'll talk about more in a second,
But yes, it came up with that.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah, and that makes sense. But it's been around before
Ashley Madison apparently. But for me personally, February thirteenth is
Gallantine's Day, which is all cheerful and great. See our
previous episode where we talked about it, and we enjoy
the joys of that. Thank you Parks and Ratt for

(05:01):
giving us a name for this holiday. But for some,
specifically those in the restaurant industry, because this is kind
of where it comes from, is what many call Mistress Day. Me,
being my naive self, had no idea. Again, this was
a thing makes sense, but I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yet.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
But I will say part of this kind of the
first thing I have in my head is like the
eighties nineties soap opera thing with the rich older men
taking out their Valentine to these restaurants on the low,
you know. And by the way, again, rich people think
because Valentine's celebration is ridiculously expensive, you try to go
out to this like prefixed menu, it's like four hundred

(05:45):
dollars and that doesn't include drinks, which I did that
last year because I just wanted to do it for
one time round. Have a nice little I love a
prefixed milk. Like if it's good, it's good. But damn
is expensive. Yeah, yep. So for a person to do
that twice in one week, well, I guess because the

(06:06):
February thirteenth is not necessarily Actually, most of the restaurants
that I was looking at recently they had a prefix
menu from like the twelfth to the fifteenth, so they
were covering their damn basis.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
I think it's like if you can't get one, you
can't get a reservation, and or you're busy the day
quotever reason, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Just put that quote saying yeah for whatever.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
For whatever reason.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, yeah, yes.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
But thanks to TikTok again for informing me of such practices,
and more specifically to Delish the site who did an
article and did a whole video talking about these things
and traditions. So here's a definition from them. Mistress Day
is the day when affair havers choose to shower their
other special someone prior to whining and dining their actual

(06:55):
partner on February fourteenth. They explain. Also Mistress Day also
called mistress Night or paramore Night, which I like that
title better. I'm not gonna lie. It apparently occurs on
the day before Valentine's Day. So there you go. And
there's a couple another term that we're gonna talk about
a minute. I think it's just as funny. And the

(07:17):
article continues. A study from Ashley Madison Australia suggests, yes
the Affair website, so take this with a grain of salt,
that thirty percent of male and female cheaters typically spend
Valentine's Day with their outside partners, and they often spend
the same or more on their affair partners during the holiday,
between one hundred dollars to two hundred and fifty dollars

(07:37):
per partner. Again, why would you cheat it? It's expensive,
That's what I'm finding out.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
It is expensive, and it's also, like I think, pretty
telling if you spend more because you don't want them
to say something you're like, see, I appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
So a couple of the articles that I read outside
of this, and they are older so one of them
was two thousand and nine, one of them was two thousand,
one of them was twenty eleven, so a little older,
and talking about these some of them said that seventy
percent of more people who have these partners, I guess
will will be spending more on them, so they're more
likely going to spend more and then move on and

(08:25):
kind of talked about how the women or people who
are their spouses or actual partners get less and less
and less every year. Yeah, that's so sad. Do better
people again. All of this makes me very sad, both
for the amount spent in general, to the cheating and
to the cheating like both of those things, I'm like,
don't wow, wow, Like I want to be cared for,

(08:48):
but I want thoughtful presence just knowing that you care. Yeah,
any I know you care, Which does bring in the
perspective that it may not be about mistresses at all,
just as a reminder, but couples who are making smart
financial deals and decisions and also not missing with those crowds.

(09:09):
So they're like yeah, we're gonna do it ahead of time,
or later we'll just do our own thing, so you know,
that's one option. Or perhaps they are polyamorous or in
an open relationship so they are communicating, so it's not
so much cheating, or so we can't judge any of
these things by that appearance because you never know. You
never know, So as just someone like, don't become that

(09:31):
person that comes to like you're cheating unless you actually know.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
I guess.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Also, can we talk about how this sexist idea links
very heavily into the rich man having an affair thing,
because again, mistress day is definitely gendered as we see it,
and of course one article the New York Post puts
it this way, mistress day has become a misnomer as
more cougars have gotten in on the action. So there

(09:57):
you go, I guess. And then there's some just shows
up bad. So I was like, okay, add another sexist
term to that to make it worse. While this is
just a fair having men, it's mistresses and cougar's in
that term. I was like, yeah, that's about right, But
there is another term also for this practice. I enjoy
a bit more. I will say, which is Valence swins Day,

(10:20):
y'all Valence swines And I was like, oh, okay, which
is not to be confused to the German tradition of
their own form of Valentine's I guess I don't know
if that's what they call it. I'm sure they don't
call it valanced wines day that Germany has a term
for it. But they do actually exchange pigs, unfortunately, not

(10:42):
real ones, because I want to pot belly pigs. I'm
gonna give me one, just kidding, but keep seeks and
as such, and pigs are considered good luck and oftentimes
will be a picture of a pig instead of cupid.
So yeah, that's a practice, but this is not what
we're talking about. This is not a cute term of
endearment for that no, but as would indicate, people use
this term as more of a dig as A New

(11:04):
York Post titled it titled their twenty eleven piece about
this subject Valence Swine's Day When Pigs romance mistresses. Dang,
and I was like, you know what, I really appreciate
this title, So we're gonna gender it. Let's do it
this way, because I'm like, the very least, we're not

(11:29):
blaming the mistress on this one, just the mistress on
this way Paramore day, Paramore night. I feel like it
is a fancier version, right, Maybe this is Ashley Madison term.
And of course we had to do the urban Dictionary
example about this term the day before Valentine's Day that

(11:51):
guys used to spend time with their second or third
most important woman in their lives. February thirteenth is the
day that just get to feel like wives and sideline
hoes get to feel like star players. Yes, this is
all urban dictionary, y'all. It's especially sad when the girl
doesn't know she's not the only girl her boyfriend is seeing.

(12:14):
And of course they have a little dialogue. So, uh,
you want to be a girl too in this Annie? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Sure, all right, here we go. Girl.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
So he's taking you out the day before Valentine's Day.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yeah, he has to work late on Valentine's Day.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
I'm pretty sure he's going to be with his actual girlfriend.
That's why he's taking you out on Valencewine's Day.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
And scene scene what you need to do these more often?

Speaker 3 (12:43):
But yeah, so apparently it's a thing. I'm not really
I try to find the history of where that began.
Maybe it's just the easily done, like obvious term and
it just kind of grew with that, but yeah, it
did start. It does look like it originated from restaurant
because they had to prepare and knowing that how much
money they were going to make or who's coming in.

(13:05):
A lot of servers were interviewed talking about how they were,
you know, given the eye or the look from the
cheater be like please, please play it cool, how oftentimes
they were so uncreative, not creative, that they would come
to the same place two or three times back to
back to back, so they knew who these people were.
I think there was one person talked about how they

(13:28):
did out them quite loudly and it was quite funny.
And then there was another person talking about how she
had a huge tip because the dude was like realizing
she wasn't playing along because she would look just look
more confused more than anything else, not saying anything, just
obviously wasn't aware of what's happening, and it was like

(13:50):
please with the love of Jesus, and gave her a
huge tip in order to keep her quiet.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Aw geez.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
So so they go Happy Valentine's Day. I hope your
Valentie's Day is better than this mess right here if
you happen to celebrate, if you would just rather do
the joys of Gallantine, we hear you, and Happy Gallantine's
Day from us.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, and if you want to go
check out our you know not too oftenly updated Instagram
we did prior to a Gallantine's Day post from Disneyland.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
It's true, it's very cute. Thank you, that is very cute.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
But yes, whatever you're doing, because again I'm pretty much
just like eating food by myself, and I'm pretty excited
about it. You can email us at Stephanie moms Stuff
at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on Twitter
at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at
stuff One never told you. We have a tea public
store and we have a book you can get wherever
you get your books. Thanks as always too, our super

(14:55):
producer Christina Ing, secret producer My and your contributor Joey.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
Happy Gallentines Day and Friends Day.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yes, yes, thanks to you for listening.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Stefan ever totallys prediction of My Heart for more podcast
from My Heart, You can check out the radio app,
Apple podcast or where you listen to your favorite shows.

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