About Valentine's Day: A Guide For Guys To Valentine's Day

Dear Boys,

This is for the guy who is married to a girl, dating a girl, or interested in a girl. Here's something to think about: Valentine's day is like your wedding, it's about the both of you, but really, it's her day.

Valentine's Day should start with a compliment, such as "You're beautiful," or "I'm so glad I found you." An "I love you," is good, too - but only if it's true. A truly sincere compliment is much more important than anything superfluous or overdone.

Valentine's Day includes compliments, flowers, chocolate, stuffed animals (or any combination thereof), and only if you're creative or know what she wants, should you stray from this very specific combination of Valentine's Day elements. It also includes dinner, preferably a nice one. Valentine's Day dinner is the meal to say, "Honey, let's celebrate."

The thing about dinners is they don't have to be expensive to be nice. It does, however, have to be only two people - no third wheels for this meal; something you both like, and it has to be somewhere clean and professional. McDonalds is not a suitable Valentine's Day meal, I promise. If you can cook, more power to you: Valentine's Day is the day to whip out all the stops, making a meal at home perfectly acceptable, as well.

Yes, flowers are more expensive on Valentine's Day. Suck it up, Cupcake. By the way, roses are overdone... pretty, but overdone. Consider a combination of flowers, like roses and tulips or roses and stargazers or roses and her favorite flower or your favorite flower (you know you have one) and her favorite flower. Or, if you're stuck, ask the florist. They can help, I promise. That's what they're there for.

Every girl will complain if you give her chocolate, "Oh, it's going to make me fat," but secretly, unless she doesn't like chocolate at all, she wants it. It doesn't have to be a lot, though. Just a couple of pieces. No two-pound boxes of chocolate. That makes every girl mad - and it's obvious you waited until the last minute - or forgot - and are trying to make up for it (I know, I used to work in a candy store. Valentine's Day had the biggest sales - and the only day of the year men bought 5 lb boxes of chocolate).

No matter how old you are, you are never too old to receive a teddy bear from your sweetheart. There can be cute variations on this old gift idea, but scary monkeys do not qualify as cute, cuddly, teddy bears. By the way, neither do live animals, no matter how cute and cuddly.

Valentine's Day is not a day for gift cards, unless they're highly original - and for something specific. For instance, it is perfectly acceptable to purchase a gift card to your wife/girlfriend's favorite coffee shop, spa or masseuse. It is not acceptable to give her a gift card to Wal-Mart. Feel free to use your imagination, but keep your girl in mind, too.

A note about pre-Valentine's Day: If you ask, "Honey, what do you want for Valentine's Day?" You need to be willing to get her what she wants. None of this, "I'm sorry, sweetie, roses are $70 and they die within a week. Pick something else." That doesn't fly. If you don't want get her what she wants, don't ask her what she wants.

So boys, now you have a quick little guide to making your Valentine's Day a good, successful day, and not something that will end with you sleeping on the couch (husbands), having a pan broken over your head (anyone) or with you having a disappointed significant other and completely clueless as to why.

Sincerely,

A truly distressed girlfriend who wishes her boyfriend read her blog