An open letter to ladies on Valentine's Day

... from some dudes

(Editor's Note: This piece was published in the spirit of Valentine's Day... and because it was written by an Internet entrepreneur whose purpose in life - as CEO of a dating site - is to inspire love.)

Ladies, we want you to know that Valentine’s Day is the most confusing and frightening day of the year for men. We love you and our only intention is making this day special for you, or at the very least, we don't want to disappoint you. The problem is that the harder we try to make this day perfect, the wronger our instincts ultimately prove to be. If we were smart, we’d pull a George Costanza and recognize that “if every instinct we’ve ever had is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.” But instead of ditching the proverbial tuna on toast for “chicken salad, on rye, untoasted…a nd a cup of tea,” we let our instincts guide us. This inevitably leads to disappointment and mis-communication in the triumvirate of Valentine’s Day events: Dining, Gifting, and Romping.

Dining

For weeks leading up toe the big day we’re scanning the Internet, looking for the most romantic restaurant in town. Worried that you’ll think we copped out by discovering that we chose the number four restaurant in Zagat’s list of Top 10 Romantic, we remember a special meal that we had in October that we paid a fortune for. You loved that meal (at least you said you did) and the vegetarianna that you are even ate red meat for the first time in seven years. We think, wow you really enjoyed that meal so much that you even made a dietary exception to get their namesake dish. This is going to be perfect.

So we make the reservation, preparing to shell out another $300 for dinner and wine, make you close your eyes in the cab and when we get there, you’re pissed.

“Why are we at Peter Luger’s on Valentine’s Day?? Did you forget I’m a vegetarian?”

FAIL.

Gifting

Giving VDay gifts to us is super easy. We like cool stuff. The Chumby you got us for our desk at work is the perfect Valentine’s Day prezzie. For us, if a gift is romantic, in our heads that means it’s not something we can use after tonight. If you want to give us something romantic, give us something cool.

Because we like cool, practical gifts, we can’t seem to shake the fact that you simply do not. For us, the gift giving is a source of extreme stress. They say that from great constraint comes great creativity. That couldn’t not be more true in this case. Somebody once told us that being romantic means being a really good listener. With that in mind, we think back to different items you’ve recently mentioned wanting. High-waisted shorts? Yeah you’ve been dying for those. This is going to knock her socks off. We picture you talking to your friends on the fifteenth:

Friend: He got you SHORTS??

You: Yes, but he overheard me say that I was browsing for high-waisted shorts online at work and he REMEMBERED! It’s so romantic.

Friend: OMG is he single?! Oh wait, he’s your boyfriend.

But that’s not what happens. Instead, it goes like this:

Friend: He got you SHORTS??

You: Yeah, he’s a shmuck.

Friend: Glad he’s not my boyfriend.

Romping

If we’ve done even a passable job in the Dining and Gifting categories and we didn’t get in a huge argument after dinner, this tends to be the time in the night where you Ladies start to feel the immense pressure that we’ve been feeling leading up to this day. You want to reward us, and in your heads, that means you have to use your memory and come up with something creative that we might like.

So, you think back to that hungover brunch where we mentioned that we wanted to make love to the omelette we were eating and the next thing we know there are egg whites and feta joining us in the VDay sack and Philippe, the line cook, is standing in the corner over a griddle cooking up some hash browns.

The truth is, we’re simple creatures and really just enjoy the normal stuff that we do all the time. Sure, we’ll occasionally make a “joke” about how we’d like to try a threesome and chuckle insincerely while we attempt to judge your reaction. But in reality we don’t really need to stray to far from the routine to enjoy ourselves, so don’t fret.

With that, ladies, our hope is that on this Valentine’s Day, you will try to believe that all of our actions leading up to now have been driven solely by love and the desire to please you. We want to create a flawless day for you because that is what you deserve. All we ask for in return is that you cut us some slack and enjoy your porterhouse.

(Note: This piece was featured on the Huffington Post today. You can see the original here)

(Image source:  imgs.xkcd.com)