Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone.

Everyone except the wonderful women I had the pleasure of lunching with late last week. A good size group of them, ages from late thirties to middle fifties, all either business owners or executives in business, mixed ethnic backgrounds although predominantly white.

And to a T they all scrooged Valentine’s Day with a resounding “Bah, humbug!”

The rallying cry could be summed up in a single thought, “If my partner needs a special day to show me I’m loved, that love doesn’t mean much.”

Universally was a denouncing of flowers, champagne, cards, candy, jewelry, definitely negligee and things got even more explicit from there.

High on the list was impromptu time together. “My husband sometimes comes running up to me and kisses me, then runs back to finish what he’s doing. I love that.” Cuddling under a blanket on a chilly winter’s night watching a favorite show, movie, reading, etc., was up there. A quiet dinner with mobiles off where they talked scores lots of points. “One thing I really hate is his damn iPhone. I want to grab it out of his hands and say ‘You’re talking to me. Let’s finish our conversation first’.”

I questioned that. Each person in the room had some kind of mobile device and a good number had more than one. Does technology get in the way of relationship?

“It can but only if you let it.”

Preventing that takes two partners, doesn’t it?

That was the slippery slope. The women in this group didn’t want peaks of attention on special days so much as equal amounts of attention on all days with reasonable peaks and troughs as life allows. But once attention was lost, that slippery slide began and reclaiming it required definite effort.

So, guys, send a card or flowers or candy or jewelry if you must, but put down your phone first. Send the kids out to a movie for the evening. Surprise her with an evening of genuine sincerity and appreciation for her as your life-partner.

She is, after all, much more than your “wife”.

Upcoming Trainings:

• Know How Someone Is Thinking in Ten Seconds or Less

Upcoming Conferences:

• I’ll be part of a panel on new marketing paradigms and another panel on neuromarketing at the March 2011 AMA Boston
• Reading Customer’s Minds (presentation, booksigning, etc) at the 11-13 Apr 2011 Ad:Tech San Francisco
• NeuroAnalytics and NeuroMarketing at the 1-3 May 2011 IIR Chicago Conference
• NeuroAnalytics and NeuroMarketing as it applies to other analytics at the 17-18 May 2011 Text Analytics Conference, Boston, MA

Come on by and say hello.

Sign up for The NextStage Irregular, our very irregular, definitely frequency-wise and probably topic-wise newsletter.
You can follow me and my research on Twitter. I don’t twit often but when I do, it’s with gusto!
Have you read my latest book, Reading Virtual Minds Volume I: Science and History? It’s a whoppin’ good read.

Learn the latest regarding NextStage blog posts, conference sightings,
whitepapers, tools, presentations and more via The NextStage RSS feed .