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On the morning of Valentine's Day 1992, a modest flower arrangement materialized on the front porch of my childhood home. The tiny card attached was addressed to ME and signed: your secret admirer.

The intrigue. Who could this be who found 11-year-old me so beguiling? Maybe John, the hot older boy who lived in the house behind me? Tim, the redheaded kid down the street? Someone from school?

The fun wasn't as much about actually nailing this culprit but in speculating, who is this?

The mysterious flower arrangements came three years in a row. Whoever this was, they had remarkable stamina for not only their enduring interest but also creeping around for years without being found out. My circle of suspects expanded as I changed schools in 7th grade, then again as I collided with freshman year of high school.

The third and final year, I was crushed to recognize the handwriting on the card as my dad's. The secret admirer, this shooting star of sparkling annual attention, vanished into the night sky as I realized this was some kind of tooth-fairy tale for profound adolescent losers.

But - in some ways, that secret admirer was the best Valentine's Day gift I ever got. More on that in a minute.

Sounds cute. Why do we hate this again?

As I grew into high school crushes, college boyfriends, and then adult relationships, Valentine's Day got much less magical and led to, more often than not, feeling excluded, misunderstood, or both.

I'm hardly alone in this and would bet you've felt the same way about Valentine's Day at some point, if not every year.

I'm pointing one finger at advertising traditions explicitly invented to take your money without having the courtesy of shining insight on what human beings in the 21st century actually want.

They don't know! So they make something up!

Nobody's born knowing how to celebrate holidays - tradition and retail agendas show our elders and peers what to do, and we follow the lead of folks who seem to know what they're doing.

Another finger of mine gets pointed at us - if we don't make an effort to learn about ourselves or our partners, blindfolded gift-giving on Valentine's Day culminates in disappointment, hurt feelings, and resentment.

We follow the leader to Kay Jewelers because we don't know, either!

So how do we learn what we need to know to give great gifts - to our partners or anyone else?

Words-of-Affirmation sun, Quality-Time rising

You've almost definitely heard of the five love languages. The one that sounds most like you suggests the way you best feel appreciated by your partner and other loved ones. These are:

• Words of affirmation
• Acts of service
• Receiving gifts
• Quality time
• Physical touch

Mine is 1,000% words of affirmation: praise, affectionate words, nicknames, verbal encouragement, and spoken expressions of my partner's pride in my work and who I am.

Jim, my husband, is unimpressed by most of my attempts at being funny, which is confined only to every second I'm awake.

I can sometimes make him laugh, but it's never a gimme. This makes me work much harder and hold the things I make to a higher standard, which the workhorse artist in me enjoys quite a lot.

When I knock something out of the park - a well-executed Photoshop meme, or a decent joke - he laughs this great laugh and says, "good one".

Nothing makes me feel more seen, appreciated, or invincible.

I did standup at Philly's Phunniest last June and he brought his whole family. Jim said he loved it and that it was the best set I ever wrote. His family praised my performance, too - even quoting some of my own jokes back to me! 🥰

What's your sign?

I don't necessarily recommend the book that introduced this "I'm a Leo and he's an Aquarius" approach to understanding how people like to be treated - in terms of how it's written, it may be the most annoying book I've ever read.

That said, the ideas are valuable!

If you'd like to narrow down your love language and get a better idea of what kind of love expression fills you up the best, I do recommend taking this quiz.

Worth noting is that most folks are a mixture of these styles - they're not mutually exclusive - but one usually bubbles to the top as your dominant language.

Another note: There's a school of thought that your love language is a look at what you didn't get enough of as a kid. I won't editorialize on that here, but it's an arresting item to consider once you know your results.

I asked Google about the most popular love language, and according to a 2010 survey, receiving gifts is in last place. Why is gift-giving the predominant focus on the Big Love Holiday when gifts are relatively unimportant to most folks?

Why the gift-giving moment still matters

The Chip and Dan Heath book The Power of Moments is one of my favorite books ever. Jumping off a few of their incredible insights, I'm comfortable arguing here that the most important part of gift-giving is engineering a moment.

Extraordinary, memorable moments are especially crucial in this pandemic. The last two years have been a featureless gray flatline that feels like a long marathon training sequence with no race-day payoff.

All the special events and customary ways we'd mark social occasions were suspended, made smaller, or canceled. Every day blurs into the next without some kind of bright spot or peak experience - unless you engineer one.

Providing this to anyone - especially a custom one for someone you love - is a mind-blowing kindness in 2022.

Ideally, you're trying to design a little experience - or a big experience, if that's your partner's thing - with a strategic, novel, and tailored way to communicate to this person that they're special to you.

This is why my secret admirer adventure when I was 11 was so magical. The galvanizing entertainment of a gift from some mystery figure who only had eyes for me was transcendent. In reality, it was probably just my parents feeling bad nobody else was interested:

But the experience, that anticipation and moment of checking the porch: does he still like me? Omg, he does! completely overshadowed the actual flower-gift. It also broke up the unrelenting tedium of flat February days for a depressed preteen.

I was special to somebody! In middle school, I was an astonishingly defective person in no position to be in even an age-appropriate relationship - but the safe excitement of imagining I was noteworthy and cute to someone was magical.

Creating that oh wow moment for your partner means communicating that you understand what they're about and creating a little peak experience for them informed by their style.

30 years after the secret-admirer experience, I don't like surprises anymore. Jim tries hard never to surprise me, which shows he knows what I hate as much as what I like.

Big surprises give me anxiety. Knowing what not to do is also critical!

I'm a planner, and I do like to be delighted by stuff I can look forward to (something to anticipate is a great gift) - as long as it's not sprung on me.

The Heath brothers assert that a peak moment for someone doesn't need all of the below elements, but you need at least two:

• Elevation
• Insight
• Pride
• Connection

So how do you use this information?

A gifting guide that's not an ad

Another list in quick succession, sorry. A great gift experience communicates three important things:

You're special to me

We want to feel special and exceptional to the person we agreed to share our short life with.

I thought carefully about what to do for you in advance

We want you to show you have the object permanence to think of us when we're not in your immediate line of sight, and this isn't just something you remembered to do only because you didn't want to catch a raft of shit.

I know you well enough to understand what you like and don't like

We want to feel seen, understood, and valued for who we are: I get you.

Case study of an exceptionally great gift

A friend's superstar thoughtful wife recently gave him concert tickets to 5 different 2022 shows - including 2 of his favorite bands (his all-time favorite of which they're seeing 2 nights in a row) and Weird Al.

She nailed all 3 of those gift-giving guidelines, combined Elevation and Connection, AND added anticipation - grand slam.

Amazing! And her gift touches on the second-most-popular love language: quality time with your person!

Wrap it up please

Wherever you're at in your love journey, I hope you can benefit somehow from everything here AND some bonus general-purpose relationship pointers below. This stuff works for platonic friends and family members, too!

I scrawled this micro-manifesto on the fly at a friend's bridal shower in November of 2016. It's been tremendously useful in preventing and managing common snags (and maximizing the good stuff) in my own marriage.

It's also self-exposé about my Words of Affirmation bias. Peace!

Relevant plugs

• My friend Chip Chantry has a wonderfully funny podcast called A Dangerous Thing that teaches you "just enough information to make you think you know something". The Valentine's Day episode features the shimmering wit of Philly-based sex educator Dr. Timaree.
• My very smart and entertaining friend Dr. Neil Bardhan (happy wedding anniversary, Neil!!) is telling a breakup horror story tonight on the annual Ex Files storytelling showcase. You can watch from home!

Books I borrowed ideas from

• ​The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip and Dan Heath
• ​The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

Albums I spun while I wrote this

• Datura: Arcano Chemical (2022)
• The Jukebox Romantics: Fires Forming EP (2021)
• Neckscars: Don't Panic (2021)
• Hot Water Music: Exister (2012)
• Banner Pilot: Hearts Beat Pacific (2011)

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