Why do I not care about Valentine’s Day? In short — because every day for me is Valentine’s Day. Nothing against it as such. At least once a year your partner is reminded to pay you some attention. A man, especially when he’s been longer in a relationship, will focus on either his career or fishing or football watching or saving the world. That means though his woman will not receive the attention any longer that she needs. So at least there is this one pink day which acts like a ‘beautiful’ social pressure to think of his beloved.

Ah, attention…

Valentine’s Day is like our wedding day. Why do we women go nuts over our wedding day? Simple! Because at least for ONCE the attention is on us.

What does that tell you, my dear men? It’s not like you don’t need attention, I know. But on average you will get far more attention than any woman. And I’m not saying that’s always a good thing. With more attention also comes more pressure.

We all need the 3 A’s, Jonathan Robinson says. Attention, Acknowledgment and Appreciation.

Out of those three, it seems men need more appreciation and we women more attention. As I said, we all need all three, but the balance is a bit different. Ladies, think about it and tell me if you agree (or not).

I can’t explain why we don’t naturally give each other what we need. I mean, I can have an educated guess but it entails several reasons. One is how we grew up, watching our parents and others treat each other. The other is what we have been learning through different media. (If you watch soap operas all day, for sure you will crave more drama.) Another reason is our natural laziness perhaps? Or our short memory? Or simply bad habits or good habits which we’ve never instilled in ourselves?

I became aware of all of these things in my twenties and started to research, learn and think about how I can improve my relationships. One thing is for sure, I’m very aware that my man needs my appreciation and love every day, not just once a year.

There you go, dear men — imagine getting a “Thank you dear for bringing out the trash.” only once a year. Now you’re gonna say to me:”But I don’t get even one such sign of appreciation! On the contrary, all I get is bitchiness.”

I hear you, I really do.

Look, read my book or even after this article, sit down with your partner and write down on a piece of paper:

• I, as a man, need to hear one kind word a day from my beautiful wife/girlfriend/partner.
• We will draw a line under the time so far, forget what has been done, no one is to blame, all is forgiven, so let’s treat every day as a Valentine’s Day from now on.
• And I, as a woman, I need at least once a day to be touched, hugged, kissed, without it leading to sex.
• We both promise to do our best to give each other these things every day or as often as possible.

You see? For him, a kind word — appreciation. For her, a touch, a gift, a…whatever she needs to feel love, hence — attention. But she needs to tell you what it is she needs. You might have been giving her a bunch of gifts but perhaps she doesn’t even care about some stupid gifts (that would be me for example) but would rather have you take your time, cook something for her or simply take your time in bed, admire her body and go down on her.

The reason I dislike Valentine’s Day though is because this (as most commercialised things) started in the USA and now the madness has spread to Europe and I preferred the times when we didn’t have the pressure of holidays, real or imaginary ones. If you have a loved one and family, then holidays can be nice but they are most likely a torture device. You have to spend money on gifts you don’t have, fly over to another country with the money you could use better for proper holidays and so on.

Not to speak of those who don’t have loved ones and feel the loneliness even more than usual.

Couldn’t we agree on one family holiday, period? Or perhaps each family should agree on a special date when it’s actually nice to visit. For example, if I go down to Slovenia for Christmas, I might be lucky to find a snowy country, but that probably then means that my flight gets cancelled. And even if I manage to get there, I have nothing to do there but to eat and sit around while others go about their business. Booooooring. And I get fat again of course.

It makes much more sense to go in the summer when there is lots to do.

Yesterday my husband stood in the kitchen with me lingering about, and he started to say:”Sunday is Valentine’s Day…” — “Yes?” And? said my eyes. He thought I didn’t really hear him. “Sunday is Valentine’s Day.” I tried to be clearer. “So? Who cares? Oh, ok, if you want to mark the occasion, just get me an orgasm.” He laughed and with that the matter was closed. He knew exactly how little I could care about chocolate right now, especially since I’ve never been fatter than ever. Thanks to the lockdown, food, especially chocolate has been my consolation.

So perhaps the best Valentine’s Gift you could give your woman is to tell her how beautiful she is, in earnest. No matter how much weight she has gained, she needs to at least not worry about her lowering self-esteem if she’s feeling anything like myself right now.

And vice versa, ladies. Be kind to your man. Tell him how greatly he has done something. How strong he is, how wonderful. How much you appreciate him.

Who shall make the first step? It really doesn’t matter. As Jonathan Robinson says in his book “Communication Miracles for Couples”:

Do you want to be right or do you want to be loved?

Every day… Not just on Valentine’s Day.