What a Woman Really Wants : A word to the wise on Valentine’s Day: Forget the lingerie, the perfume, the stuffed animals with funny signs around their necks.
“What does a woman want?” Despite 30 years of research into the feminine psyche, Sigmund Freud was unable to answer the question. I have no grand solution to offer men, and I certainly can’t speak about the rest of the year, but at least I am going to tell you what women want and don’t want on Valentine’s Day.
We don’t want heart-shaped boxes of gooey chocolates. We don’t yearn for stuffed animals wearing silly signs saying things like, “I can’t keep my paws off you.” We don’t desire red coffee mugs (“To espresso my love”) or yet another bottle of Eau d’Amour. Nor do we long for exotic lingerie that we must try on for you in the painful awareness that we look nothing like the model wearing lace-top thigh highs and lying in golden light on Page 7 of the Victoria’s Secret catalogue. Roses are always nice and, unlike the good woman of the Bible, many of us are not above the price of rubies. But to fill our hearts with gladness, you need not deplete your bank accounts. Neither flowers nor jewels are necessary. What we most value on Valentine’s Day is--a valentine.
More than 900 million cards are expected to be given in the United States on this holiday. That’s nearly a billion billets-doux whirling around out there like snowflakes. My women friends and I sometimes wonder just who is receiving all of these. Do Cindy Crawford, Michelle Pfeiffer and those bimbotic Barbi twins get 225 million each? We like to speculate; yet most of us aren’t covetous. We don’t really care about harvesting a huge red-and-white crop. What we crave is not volume, but that one sweet valentine be sent to one of us from one of you.
Of course a handwritten love letter or a hand-decorated card with amorous inscriptions would be the ultimate. But if you are not particularly creative or artistic, don’t give up. A store-bought card is fine; just show some care in choosing it. Although we put up with joke cards on our birthday, we do not want a joke-love token--what was called in the 19th Century a “vinegar valentine.” No mean cards, please. Or crude cards. Or even flippant ones (“I couldn’t love you more--unless, of course, you win the lottery.”)
What we sigh for is something sentimental and romantic. What we want is a message of love. Tell us, “You are my heart’s delight.” Tell us, “All my dreams are of you.” We will smile at the cliches but enjoy them just the same. (Incidentally, we’re not asking you to lie. Don’t sign off with “You & Me, Now & Forever” if you don’t mean it.)
Pick an extravagantly pretty card embellished with naked cupids, fluttery doves, arrows of desire, ribbons, lace and other fanciful devices. Or select a very simple valentine that will remind us for a moment of the first one we ever received--when we were in grade school and when everything was a surprise. Find a humble red heart that says “2 Sweet 2 Be 4Gotten” or “Be Mine” or merely “XXX OOO.”
If you possibly can, mail rather than hand-deliver your card on V-Day. And do remember the stamp. It need not say “LOVE” or display the young Elvis, but this is hardly the occasion for “postage due.” Think of us drearily sorting through bills and reminders from the dentist and then, with a catch of excitement, coming on an envelope with our name and address written in ink. We will open it slowly with careful fingers. We will sit alone, examining our valentine, happy as a child.
So, men with hearts, surrender them on love’s red-letter day. I know it goes without saying that you adore us. But say it anyway. The written word has permanence. By Feb. 15, the candy boxes will be empty except for those little, faintly aromatic, corrugated cups. Petals fall from the flowers. The champagne has lost its chill. We will have packed up the dopey fuzzy animals and sent them to our young nieces. The silk chemises and satin camisoles will be crammed into a bottom drawer along with all the other lingerie that we intend to wear when we have worked off the aforementioned chocolates, when we have a tan, when pigs fly.
But your card will be held, read, reread, tucked away and treasured for years. The earliest extant valentine (now in the British Library) was sent by the Duke of Orleans while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1415. Do you know why it still exists? Because the Duchess saved it.
