Ahhh. Valentine’s Day is here. Called the most romantic day of the year, around six million Americans will become engaged tomorrow. But that won’t be the biggest day of the year for that. That distinction belongs to Christmas. Christmas and Christmas Eve actually. It depends on which day you unwrap your presents. Since there is not a Valentine’s Eve to spread the festivities over, either you’re going to be romantic on the 14th or you wait till Easter and work a ring into an egg I suppose.

It’s fitting that Christmas and Valentine’s share people’s affection for romance, or at least for a desire to formally get together. Both celebrations focus on love. Unfortunately, when you don’t have a focus for your love on Valentine’s Day you probably notice it more.

As a guy, I know about losing your focus. We do it with alarming regularity. No offense to the gay community but if it wasn’t for men screwing up relationships with women, the romantic comedy movie genre would be a wasteland. It’s the perfect formula – boy meets girl, boy does something incredibly stupid, boy loses girl, boy apologizes, girl gives boy second chance, boy and girl live happily ever after or until the sequel whichever comes first. Art mimics life. Actually, that’s not the formula. Usually it’s boy does something credibly stupid. The incredible part is how often girl gives boy that second chance.

Another somewhat ominous tie between Christmas and Valentine’s is the anti-romance factor. January is the most popular month for divorce filings. Apparently those Christmas/New Year’s/Holiday parties are the perfect settings for boy does something credibly stupid and girl doesn’t fancy that second chance. But the power of Valentine’s Day shows itself in that a good chunk of those filings are withdrawn by the end of February. And the better part of those reconciliations never end up at the Clerk of Courts office again. Perhaps the mid-February apology is stronger than the end of December transgression.

No other time of the year displays as great a forgiveness factor than the Valentine season. So my advice to any guys reading this (and that includes any guys whose girls have not so surreptitiously passed this under their noses), is don’t wait for the boy does something stupid step and move right to boy apologizes. Heavens know we’ve done something stupid whether girl noticed it or not. If you really have any desire to move onto boy and girl live happily ever after, don’t take any chances. Make love, not excuses.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?