Valentine’s Day falls on a Saturday this year. That makes it a bit more of a challenge for the men. When that day for lovers is during the week, there are many more opportunities for excuses as to why they didn’t pay as much attention as they should have.
After all, you had to get up and go to work. It was too busy during the day and you didn’t get a chance to get out for lunch. Traffic was bad on the way home and you didn’t want to stop for gifts and cards and be late. Guys can be quite creative when they are trying to save their own skin.
But Saturday, they are trapped at home and there is plenty of interaction with his significant other, so it can be tense if he hasn’t thought ahead. For instance, when he sits down for his morning coffee, if there is a red envelope resting against his cup and he doesn’t have the trump card in his housecoat to return, it starts to get dicey.
Worse yet, if he has missed some signals during the week, he is now playing from behind. For example, if at some time on Tuesday or Wednesday his wife casually mentioned, “I have a sitter for Saturday night,” and the only significance to his Saturday night is that the Canucks are playing the Flames on Hockey Night in Canada, he is heading for the rapids and the waterfall is in sight.
So then, many young men think they can salvage the day. They make a trip downtown to buy cards, flowers and chocolates and after racking their brains to remember what her favourite restaurant is, they optimistically phone for a reservation.
Now the mature husbands know that trying to make a dinner reservation on Valentine’s Day is a fool’s game, especially on a Saturday.
The young guy then compounds the error by pretending he has reservations somewhere and after walking into the third restaurant and being told there is a 90-minute wait, the dew has dried on the grocery store roses. Worse yet if they end up at a pub and he takes the seat with a view of the Canucks game on the big screen, the evening is all but over.
I read an article that reported the results of a survey that says that a high percentage of men observe Valentine’s Day only as an obligation or as a chance to get lucky. The term ‘getting lucky’ changes as you get older. An old timer friend of mine says his definition of getting lucky is finding a woman who can still drive after dark.
But surely there must still be some romantic guys out there. A simple blank card that says I love you, with a handwritten note inside recalling the first time you told her you loved her is priceless. Follow that up with a reservation to a new place you made weeks ago, and then putting on a tie and sports jacket to take her to dinner. She just wants to be set apart from all the other women who received the rubber stamped cards and heart-shaped boxes of chocolates.
One last tip for you young guys. If she has told you she doesn’t want anything for Valentine’s Day, don’t believe her for a second. It’s a test, and doing nothing is not an option. At least that’s what McGregor says.
