How can I possibly top my blog post from February 14th, 2012? After all, it was the most important article ever written on this website. Why was it so important? Because it got me more than 17 page views for the first time, reinforcing my decision to become a full-time blogger. If you’re struggling to remember that post, or if you’re someone who started reading my blog within the last 363 days, take a minute to review The King of Romance’s Valentine’s Blog.

Now if you just read that post, you obviously pissed yourself with laughter and realized there’s no way I’m going to top it with a new Valentine’s Day post. I completely agree. But let’s review my four rules from that 2012 post to see if I’m sticking with it this year:

1). Celebrate Valentine’s Day on any other day but Valentine’s Day

Success! This year it was a combination of not wanting to compete with amateur hour on the actual day and the fact that we’re leaving town at 6AM on Friday morning. No need to fight Los Angeles’s other couples for a reservation while stressing out about how early we have to wake up the next morning. We actually celebrated V-Day twice this year. First, we went to a comedy show on January 25th (because it was seriously the only weekend night we had available in the month surrounding February 14th), and then we went out for a romantic French bistro dinner on February 12th.

2). You need a post-dinner plan…and it needs to be more elaborate than “I hope she invites me back to her place after.”

First of all, I don’t have to hope she invites me back to her place anymore. We live together. And as I mentioned above, this year we split up the dinner and the post-dinner plan into two separate nights. So after our filet and mussels dinner last night, instead of going somewhere to waste time until she didn’t feel fat anymore, I decided on a different tactic. I made her buy me gelato at the local gelatotarium and then I complained about feeling fat, which made her feel skinny because she didn’t eat the gelato. Unfortunately this didn’t have the effect of ending our night on a sexy note like I had hoped. It just caused us to get into a big fight where she yelled at me for “being a gigantic fat ass who eats too much ice cream.” I calmly told her that it’s gelato, not ice cream, and boy did she feel stupid.

3). The end-of-the-night payoff

OK, that fight didn’t really happen. Here’s how our night ended. After we got home from our super romantic dinner and even more romantic gelato-binging, she was totally in the mood I was hoping for. So she wasted no time taking…our dog outside to poop while I watched the Bruins game on tape delay. That’s romance to a couple of co-habitating 30 year olds.

4). Don’t completely ignore Valentine’s Day

Last year I made the case that even if you celebrate on a different day, you should still do something nice for your girl on the actual day. I still believe that theory, but this year because of our travel circumstances, I decided to also give her flowers early. She got them yesterday, and they’re awesome of course. But I’m curious what other people think. She now has two days to enjoy the flowers before we’re gone for almost four days. When we return, I fully expect the flowers to be dead. Should I have waited until we returned from our trip and surprised her with post-Valentine’s Day flowers? Or did I make the right move by getting them early? Anyway, the best chance she has of getting something from me on the actual day this year is when we stop for gas on our way to Mammoth and I surprise her with beef jerky and a sleeve of Pringles (obviously the orange sleeve, her favorite).

A couple more notes:

• The astute observer will notice that I pretty much copied my exact plan from last year this time around: a comedy show and dinner at a French bistro. What can I say? I’m not one to change things up when everything went as smoothly as it did last year. But I do think I’ll be pushing it if I run it back one more time in 2014.
• If you read this blog and wisely choose to surprise your girlfriend with Valentine’s Day dinner on February 12th or 13th and she gets mad because you didn’t celebrate on the actual day, she’s a complete fucking asshole and you should surprise her on the actual day by dumping her.
• For the guys who are muttering under their breath right now that this is a bullshit holiday because it’s completely geared towards women, I totally agree with you. It doesn’t seem fair, but there’s nothing we can do about it at this point. Whatever men were alive way back when Valentine’s Day was created should be rotting in hell right now. This whole charade of a holiday started on their watch. But I do think there are two things we can ask our women to do in return for us making them feel so special on Valentine’s Day:
  1. Don’t just be ready on time for once. Be ready five fucking minutes early. Is that too much to ask? This is a night we planned specifically for you. Chances are us men aren’t even going to enjoy this night because we’ll be constantly calculating the cost of all this pomp & circumstance in our heads (“Waited too long to order the flowers…$60 F-ing dollars for six roses.” “Couldn’t pronounce the name of the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu, so we had to order the $55 bottle of Pinot Noir.” “She wants to try the creme brulee dessert…I know she’s only gonna have one bite before she starts to feel fat. Fuck, I guess I’m paying $11 for her one bite of dessert.”) Just surprise us and be ready early. It won’t kill you.
  2. Steak & BJ Day is on March 14th. Don’t make us tell you twice what you can do for us in return for the amazing Valentine’s Day. You don’t think it’s a real thing? Well would a fake holiday have a legit website with a live countdown on it? Steak & BJ Day