Relationship tips for Valentine's Day

A puppy, pictured yesterday.

As it's Valentine's Day on Friday I thought I would have a love and romance themed blog post this week featuring a few relationship tips. However, I'm very similar to the main character in one of my early books when he gives the following relationship advice to his mate:

"Top of my list for advice… Like, more important than any other advice I can give you is this... When it comes to relationships, whatever you do … don’t take advice off me. That’s got to be the top rule to follow above everything else.”

Given my feebleness on the subject of romance, I therefore decided to consult the advice of various relationship 'experts' for a selection of relationship tips, observations and comments covering a variety of themes...

1) Compromise

"My wife wanted a puppy. I didn't want a puppy so we compromised and got a puppy."


2) Communication

When a women says, 'When you get a chance...', what she really means is, 'Stop what you are doing right now and carry out my wishes immediately!'


3) The Importance Of Trust

A relationship without trust is like a mobile phone with no signal. And what do you do with a mobile phone with no signal? You play games.


4) Marriage Advice For Men

When it comes to marriage, you can either be happily married or you can be right, but you can't be both.


5) Attraction

People who are attracted to your good looking face or your toned body won't be around forever, but someone who can look deeper and see your beautiful heart will never leave you.


6) Advice From A Cynic

Don't fall in love. Fall off a bridge. It hurts less.


Next up, here are a few relationship tips from kids...

1) "Is it better to be single or married?"
"It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them."


2) "How would you make a marriage work?"
"Tell your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck."


3) "How can a stranger tell if two people are married?"
"You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids."


4) "What do you think your mom and dad have in common?"
"They both don't want any more kids."


5) "What do most people do on a date?"
"Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough!"

"And the award for boyfriend of the year goes to..."

Finally, I may not be the greatest person in the world for giving relationship advice, but in the following example even I could recognise what a total chump the dude was.

Anyway, I was walking along the street one day when I passed a couple stood in the garden having a friendly chat with their neighbour. The neighbour asked the dude what he had got his girlfriend for her birthday and his reply was, "An iron."

Like, seriously, what was he thinking!? 'Hmm, I need to get a romantic gift for my girlfriend for her birthday. What shall I get her? Jewellery, perhaps? Expensive perfume? No, I've thought of something even better! I'll get her a new iron, for when she does the ironing!'

As I say, when it comes to relationship advice I'm pretty useless but even I realise that you don't buy your girlfriend an iron for her birthday. Not unless you want her to hit you around the head with it.

One subject where I am a bit wiser though, is when it comes to holidays. Going on holiday is something which I like to practise as often as possible, so if I was going to give some general advice on holidays it would be this:

"If it's an excellent holiday then you obviously want it to last as long as possible and ideally you don't want it to end. However, if it turns out that your holiday doesn't last quite as long as you'd have hoped, don't get all sad and bitter about it. It's far better to remember all the fun times you had on your holiday and all the cool things you did, rather than mope that it's over."




You can find more romance themed blog posts below:
Romantic trivia for Valentine's Day
True or false: Six romance themed 'facts' for Valentine's Day