(I shared an abridged version of this on Facebook and the response indicated that it would probably be good to share here, too.)
Okay, gents. Friday is Valentine’s Day. Make a plan and follow-through. (Click to tweet this – thanks for helping me make everyone’s Valentine’s Day that much better.)
Reminders:
- Cards and gifts are not optional, despite what she says. Here’s how to find a good gift. Also remember that gifts need not be material tokens – hiring a housecleaner or personal assistant for her or getting that flower garden done might count, too.
- Bonus: Read the Heart of the Five Love Languages. It’s $3.99, short, and you can get it and read it on just about any device (including your phone!) in 30 minutes. It’ll help you get the right gifts and craft the right experiences for her. (I’m intentionally recommending the condensed book, not the longer but still worth reading version.)
- You’ll want to have something ordered from Amazon by Tuesday, February 11th.
- Valentine’s Day is Friday. That means you need to have everything taken care of by Friday, not on Friday.
- Avoid lingerie (or anything else that may be used in the bedroom) or appliances. (I learned both the hard way.)
- You may still be able to get a place for a getaway if you move on it today or tomorrow because the majority of other men will think about reservations Wednesday or Thursday morning. You’ve got a narrow window, but it’s still a window.
- “I just want to be together” does not mean “let’s stay at home and watch TV like we normally do”
- “It’s the thought that counts” is a code phrase that means “this isn’t what I wanted.” Do not be duped: your thinking about doing something she wants and not doing it weighs exactly the same as her thinking about doing something you want and not doing it.
- If you like Valentine’s Day, great. If not, do your best to play along.
- Do not share your commentary about the economics, history, or ideology of Valentine’s Day with her. Save that for the sympathetic ear of your male friends.
- You cannot go wrong with putting in effort. You will go wrong by not putting in effort.
- The (personal) projects that show the people around us that we love them are just as important as the other (professional) projects we do.
There is a small minority of women who would be absolutely repulsed, frustrated, and triggered by my assumption – and yours – that this is the type of thing they’d want. Statistically, it is very unlikely that you’re in a relationship with one such woman. Unless you’ve tried before and have received a cool or highly critical response, assume that you’re not in a relationship with one of the women who’d rather opt out.
The list above is from 16 years of hard-won lessons with a woman who I love more than the day I met her. My knowing-doing gap can be very large here, too, as is illustrated in how to avoid being an idiot and show your lady you love her on a big day, which I wrote almost 5 years ago.
Just get it done, and pour as much love into as you can.
Ready? Break!
p.s. I’ll remind you about two weeks earlier next year. Or set up a communication list just so that we can stay on top of this together. (Comment / email me about this if you’re interested.)
Wow, all the heteronormativity and relationship norm-setting makes me cringe. I understand you want to pay attention to Valentines day, but this is a horrible way to do it.
Els,
I appreciate your perspective here. Truly, I do. Different people have different needs, and gender essentialism is bollox. There’s also an undertone of humor here that perhaps did not translate well.
And yet, I think we can both agree that actually following through with showing your loved ones that you love them in ways that make sense to them is the main message. Sorry this one wasn’t for you.
Showing people you love them is great but why do none of these kinds of articles ever say TALK TO YOUR PARTNER ABOUT WHAT THEY MIGHT LIKE. AND TELL THEM WHAT YOU LIKE. Why is communication so hard?!
I made it very clear to my husband 10 years ago when we started dating that I love receiving flowers but he’s absolutely forbidden to buy any during use I hate the price gouging. He buys me beautiful flowers at other times instead and surprises me with them, which I love.
In fact I really don’t like valentines day overall (seriously, why do you need a day to remind you to express appreciation to a loved one, how self-absorbed are you?!), my husband values it more than I do. To compromise we have a more-special-than-usual date night & keep the focus on us & our relationship. Sharing experiences & building great shared memories. Sometimes this involves buying tickets for an event but not always, and the connection is always more valuable anyway – to both of us.
Charlie – sorry but when your “humour” panders to adjust & gendernormative stereotypes, I don’t find it funny either. It’s lazy, encourages sloppy thinking (which is what stereotyping is) and reinforces to your thousands of readers that sexist tropes must still be A-okay if a successful entrepreneur who builds his focus around identifying what people want, still peddles page hits of the back of it. I know this sounds clichéd but I genuinely thought you were better than that.
Perhaps I’m not. Perhaps I am and considerably so.
There’s a much broader conversation here wherein we can discuss relationship patterns that are simultaneously informed by socialization (gender stereotyping and all) at the same time that some are needlessly reactive to those socially normed relationships. Living in a household with a woman with a PhD in Sociology and a man finishing his PhD in Philosophy, you might imagine the type of conversations that come up. What you might not imagine is all of the conversations that come up wherein we recognize that we don’t know what we want and need because we’re over-influenced by society and the sub-cultures we’re a part of.
Is Angela’s want and need to be cherished her need or osmosis from our society? Does it being the latter really change how we communicate and co-create experiences together? Similarly, is my need to be praised and acknowledged a product of said socialization?
What do we do when we want things that are inconsistent with the way we posit our identities?
And so on.
It turns out that sometimes communication is harder than asking what someone likes and saying what you like.
There are many ways to view this post. One way is that I’m just spreading sexist tropes and heteronormativity to get page hits; bread and circus, FTW. Another is that between the sarcasm and humor is a legitimate call for both partners to communicate their needs and preferences; for instance, I would hope that women reading this post would notice that the stated communication patterns are, at best, unhelpful and, at worst, unhealthily manipulative. The post itself might also open up a conversation about how communication is happening and could be improved. Humor often opens spaces that dead-on communication doesn’t.
I applaud that you and your husband have communication patterns that work for both of you. I also appreciate you speaking up.
AND I’ve gotten considerably more responses from men who have been appreciative of the reminder (they’d forgotten again) and women who have commented that they often catch themselves in the communication patterns parodied. Just as we must recognize that there are outliers to (socially) normal relationship patterns, we might want to acknowledge that those normal relationship patterns work for many people, too.
Perhaps 500 readers will actually make a plan and follow-through who otherwise would not have. That’s 1,000 people who have a better chance of being in a good emotional space to both get what they want and need NOW and discuss how to create more lasting relationships in the future. Perhaps as many readers will be disappointed or outraged by my promulgation of sexist tropes and stereotypes without reading between the lines or be disappointed that I didn’t write a far more general and abstract post about communication with their partners that was inclusive of all perspectives. My goal was to help already overwhelmed and decision-fatigued men focus and take action on taking care of the women they love, not to give them even more to think about and sort through, only to show up empty-handed and disappointed in themselves come Friday.
Sorry this one wasn’t for you.
This post is bad and you should feel bad.
I’m glad that somebody pointed this out to you.
Your supercilious ending, “Sorry this one wasn’t for you”, is slimy as all hell, but that seems to be in line with the general tone of your cautiously marketed site and its ‘content’.
Wow, someone’s mind is made up.
Thanks for introducing me to the word ‘supercilious’, though. It’s my first meeting with this fantastic word.
I wish you well on your travels.
I love it, Charlie! Sent it to my dear husband (whom I love more today than the day we met). But he’s not very good at thinking about Valentine’s Day ahead of time.
Thanks, Alyson. I hope he appreciates the reminder. 🙂
This was hilarious, Charlie. And kudos for sharing the “lessons learned the hard way” 😛
I hope lots of men appreciate it. I’ll make sure to retweet it loads.
Any chance of keeping your “humour” hat on, and make a few more posts on a similar vein? You could start a marriage column 😛
I’ll definitely consider it AND I’m more likely to do it on our soon-to-be released podcast so that people can hear the humor they may miss in writing.
Thanks for sharing the post!
Charlie,
Very sweet. Very caring. Funny, too. Also unexpected coming from you. Simply because, as you say, your PhD in philosophy and Angela’s in sociology. All the better. Surprise is great.
And happy Valentine’s Day to you both.
Love this!
I am totally one of those women who doesn’t want a gift that I had to specify to my husband. I prefer a gift that my husband just thoughtfully gave me because he wanted to and after consideration, thought I would like it. We communicate about tons of stuff, including things or experiences we want but I don’t like the idea of saying “honey, I’d love flowers on Valentine’s Day.”
My husband was not someone who just knew to do things like this when we first started dating but as he has gotten to know me (and when we’ve talked NOT outside of the holiday time, he’s really wowed me with Valentine’s Day gifts and experiences.
I don’t see anything wrong with celebrating our love for each other, even if Hallmark makes money off of it.
Valentine’s Day is not a real holiday! Though I appreciate you trying to keep your male readers out of trouble!
My husband never buys me flowers on Valentine’s Day, and we usually avoid the crowds and stay home for dinner on that night.
Sounds boring, yes, but….my guy celebrates the REAL events in life with me!
Like the summer I hiked Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 States. I returned home, tired, aching, proud of my accomplishment. My husband was more proud than I was; he had made a big sign with a drawing of me at the top of a mountain and the words “congratulations, Spunk!” Flowers were on the table, and a bottle of wine.
Or the time that I backpacked the wild of the Grand Canyon for 6 days; he and my son waiting for me at the front door as I arrived, with a delicious, REAL meal waiting for me! (After eating dried food in a bag for 6 days, this was awesome).
But V-Day will see nothing from him. And I’m totally okay with that. And I truly mean it! 🙂