A Valentine’s Day Primer
As a lifelong male, the approach of Valentine’s Day always strikes a nerve. Or maybe a femur. I always get those mixed up.
Anyway, in an effort to help out non-females everywhere, I’d like to offer my own list of Valentine’s Day Don’ts for Men. This list was garnered from many years of trial, error, and sternly-worded restraining orders, so I hope some of you knuckle-walking troglodytes find it helpful.
Valentine’s Day Don’ts:
1) Flowers are an acceptable, traditional gift. But those flowers you find left in attractive urns in cemeteries will NOT suffice on Valentine’s Day. Neither will the wreaths, even if you cover up the statements of sympathy with suggestive rhymes.
2) Dinner and a movie, if a bit unimaginative, remains as a viable option — as long as the movie in NO WAY involves the words or phrases Steven Segal, ‘of the dead,’ or ‘strippers from Hell.’ Too, dinner should at no point revolve around a drive-thru window, or eating over a sink.
3) Remember to open doors for your date on Valentine’s Eve. The exception to this rule is the door to the ladies’ restroom. They get really upset about that.
4) Make your evening meal a memorable one. Enlist the help of the restaurant staff; they’re suckers for a romantic display, and really they’re the only ones who can authorize a hot dog eating contest at your table anyway. Ladies love a winner!
5) Order a bottle of wine with your dinner. Avoid wines with twist-caps or labels that display fists or barbed wire. anything that sounds vaguely French will be fine, as long as you don’t order two snifters of fancy cologne by mistake.
6) Make this night about your date. If you should run into male friends during the course of the evening, greet them briefly but don’t engage them in long conversations. If you do arm wrestle at your table, spit out your chicken wings first.
Happy Valentine’s Day!