The ideal date is a love match

9:10am Monday 18th February 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

SO how was it for you? Valentine's Day has been and gone for another year, and whether you were a winner or a loser depends on the softness of your heart.

Some folk dismiss it as overt commercialism and argue our romantic impulses should flourish year round, not just on February 14.

Others see it as a harmless piece of fun, allowing us to celebrate love and affection with our nearest and dearest - at least for one day of the year.

Restaurants, florists, chocolate and card manufacturers surely fall into the latter camp.

So do I.

Valentine's Day holds a special place in my heart, not least because it was when my husband proposed to me, but also because it is one of the few times of the year he brings me flowers.

Being a plain-speaking Yorkshire man, my fella doesn't go for big, dramatic displays of affection. He might have asked me to marry him on Valentine's Day, but he did so in the back yard, sheepishly producing a ring he had squirreled away in the tool shed.

A straw poll among my girlfriends revealed that four out of five of us had made plans for Valentine's Day.

I was rather envious of one friend who had booked the day off with her husband.

"What are you going to do?" I inquired. "Hopefully, not a lot," she replied with a wink. Another friend was planning a foursome or rather dinner with another couple so we reckoned that didn't count.

But for one woman, Valentine's night would be celebrated a day late. "We're going out on the 15th as I couldn't face asking anyone to babysit for us on Valentine's night."

It's a shame she hadn't thought of our other friend, who "doesn't do Valentine's". Maybe she would have done babysitting.

And me? I played tennis with my husband.

Now, that doesn't sound very romantic, but it was exactly what I wanted to do.

I've just taken up the sport and have become quite hooked. My husband has been playing for 30 years and is a top club player.

There was a "love doubles" tournament on at our tennis club on Valentine's night, and I was keen to enter - particularly because I reckoned having my hubby as my partner would be an ace move and guarantee a win.

Unbeknown to me, we played the "wife swap" rules, which meant we had to play with each others' partners.

But the biggest surprise of the night was that I won the ladies' competition. My hubby didn't even make the top three in the men's rankings.

He didn't seem to mind, particularly after I donated my prize - a free racquet restring (I kept the Ferrero Rocher for myself).

I hope it went some way to make up for my Valentine's faux pas. I thought I'd bought the perfect card: quirky yet to the point. It was of Miss Piggy in a black cocktail dress with the words "Kissy Kissy" on the front.

There was just one hitch. When I opened it on Valentine's morning to write a romantic note, the inside read: "Happy Birthday".

* MEN are said to think about sex every six seconds - which explains a lot.

Such as why they can't stack a dishwasher properly, or unload the washing machine when it's finished its cycle, or make the bed in the morning.

In fact, it's a wonder they can do anything at all, with all that constant distraction.

But now it seems women are at it too.

According to a survey by an internet dating site, women think about sex up to 34 times during the working day - or once every 14 minutes.

With more than half of the women interviewed admitting to having a crush on someone at work, it's perhaps not surprising that sex pops into their minds every quarter of an hour.

But perhaps more revealing is the claim that 50 per cent of the women were not satisfied with their love lives, prompting them to think about sex during the day - often with someone other than their partner.

There's surely one obvious conclusion from all of this.

Guys, if you spent less time thinking about sex and more time and energy actually having sex with your beloved, then the world would be a more productive - or should that be reproductive? - place.