For Men: The Perfect Valentine’s Date, Explained By Science

Guys, let’s level. You can argue whether or not Valentine’s Day is an illegitimate holiday designed for emotional extortion, but the fact you’re reading this is evidence that your other half does not feel that way. Maybe she does, but she wants to celebrate anyway.

Either way, you’re on the hook for a Valentine’s date and, as long as that’s the case, you might as well get it right. Thankfully, science can lead us to the perfect answer.

As my wife will (sarcastically) tell you, there’s nothing as sexy as having your romantic desires explained away by psychology and base animal instincts. But there is a connection between these things and, the better you understand it, the better your Valentine’s date will be.

Thankfully, we have many decades of research and hundreds of studies about human courting behavior to lead us to exactly what your partner wants on Valentine’s Day. Of course, we all want different things at different times in our lives for different reasons. So, to say exactly what the perfect V-Day date is, we have to make a few assumptions. Here are mine:

• You’re a man, and your partner is feminine. In most relationships—regardless of sex—one partner typically has more masculine energy and the other has more feminine. Research has shown desires and motivations around Valentine’s day are different for men than they are women[1][2] (surprise!).
• You’re in a committed relationship. Based on this, we can assume you’ve developed a sort of “life routine” with your partner.

We also have to assume some goals:

• You want to increase your partner’s long-term commitment. You want your date to show them you’re “in it for the long-haul.”
• You want to increase attraction. You’re hoping your efforts will also have some immediate benefits.

When you control for these assumptions, you can reference a lot of data to explain exactly what it is your wife/girlfriend/feminine partner will most likely find to be the perfect Valentine’s date.

Let’s dig in.

What Committed Women Want

Popular culture is often popular because it does a fantastic job explaining things about life we have a hard time explaining ourselves.

There’s a recurring theme in one of my favorite sit-coms, Modern Family, where the mother (Claire) and the father (Phil) have a Valentine’s Day tradition of pretending to be other people. They meet in a hotel bar for a night of passion before “returning” to their less-exciting spouses.

Of all the studies on human attraction, two recent—and very interesting—findings came from The Journal of Sex Research and The University of Texas. The researchers found women become more attracted to other men the longer they stay in a relationship[3][4].

Again, not a huge surprise. Humans, in general, are wired for attraction to novelty in partners, and either sex is as likely to cheat as the other. We set that novelty desire aside at some point in the dating phase, though, to achieve long-term goals. But the desire for novelty does come back.

What do committed women want? The answer that makes the most sense is that they want a partner who is dedicated to their stable, long-term goals but can also satisfy their need for novelty as a relationship progresses and becomes more familiar[5].

So, how do you design a Valentine’s celebration that hits these needs and desires?

Novelty–Stability–Novelty: The Perfect Valentine’s Date Looks Like A Sandwich

Alright, fellas. We’ve made our assumptions and come to a conclusion about what it is that loving, committed woman wants from you. Now, how do you give her that in the form of a Valentine’s date?

The answer is a sandwich. Not an actual sandwich. That’s just an analogy. But it’s a good one because it explains exactly what a well-crafted Valentine’s date looks like. Think of it like a fancy, artisanal sandwich—a hearty, stable meal between two thin slices of some novel bread variety you’ve never tasted[6].

That is, your scientifically formulated date takes place in three acts.

Act I: Novelty / Fancy Bread

Everyone has an idea of what the “establishment” Valentine’s date looks like. Chocolate, flowers, fancy dinner. And yeah, she wants that. But that’s the stability part. It comes next.

You want to set the right tone for the night from the beginning, so start with novelty. There are lots of ways to do this, but I prefer activities over gifts. Think of something fun that will get your adrenaline flowing like a trip to the go-cart track or somewhere else exciting.

Remember, your lady sees you every day. She’s used to you. You can’t change that. What you can change, though, is your environment. And lots of research has shown the effect our environment has on us. Make this a quick stop that transitions you out of the routine day you just had.

Act II: Stability / Sandwich Filling

This is dinner. Plain and simple. You can make it. You can buy it. You can go somewhere fancy. You can go somewhere not fancy. But you have to do it. Dinner is embedded in our cultural understanding of what Valentine’s Day looks like.

You need not spend a lot of time or money on it, but you should do it in a way that gives her the feeling of something familiar and permanent. Go somewhere quiet and talk about your lives together so far. Reminisce and make plans for the future.

You can’t end here, though, because:

1. You want to introduce more novelty.
2. No one gets laid after a big meal.

Remember, we’re trying to optimize for love and passion!

Act III: Novelty / Fancy Bread

This is where you dial it back up before calling it a night. Time to transition out of the familiar territory of dinner and back into the land of excitement. Remember what we learned earlier about committed relationships? The desire for the unfamiliar increases with the age of the relationship, so anything you can do to break out of your routine is good here.

Another quick, adrenaline inducing activity here is perfect. Play some arcade games, go on a “treasure hunt,” catch a sporting event—anything that gets the blood flowing.

Then, go home and see where the night takes you.

A Perfect Valentine’s Day In Three Steps

“Sandwich.” That’s all you need to remember to put together a scientifically sound Valentine’s date:

1. Bread (novelty)
2. Filling (stability)
3. Bread (novelty)

Simple. What you’ve created is an experience that plays to the strengths of your relationship while factoring in the variables you need to correct for.

Better yet, you can use this knowledge to your advantage every day. Just don’t go screwing it all up by telling her you read some article on the Internet about how to create a scientifically superior Valentine’s date. At least not until the next day.

Sources/Notes 

1. The Pleasure and Pain of Being Close: Men’s Mixed Feelings About Participation in Valentine’s Day Gift Exchange

2. Escalated Expectations and Expanded Gender Roles: Womens’ Gift-Giving Rituals and Resistance for Valentine’s Day Events

3. Ovulatory Shifts in Female Sexual Desire

4. The research was limited, by design, to women who were not old enough to be menopausal. So, this tendency may have a natural cutoff point. Also, the study looks specifically at sexual desire around times of ovulation, so we’re generalizing a bit.

5. This answer may break down as couples venture further away from traditional relationship and gender roles.

6. It’s not lost on me that explaining a great date using a sandwich analogy probably falls flat for most women.