Maybe your last date was during the Clinton Administration. Maybe you refer to your spouse as That Guy Who Uses All the Toothpaste. Maybe you just need a little tenderness tune-up. Fear not. As Valentine’s Day approaches, C-VILLE gets to the heart of the matter. Enroll in our Woo U, listen up and find how to make love exciting and new….
Meet somebody
It’s the lottery principle: You can’t win if you don’t play. Find yourself unnaturally attached to “The Amazing Race”? Get out of the house. Learn to cook. Ask your friends to introduce you to all the singles they know. Set yourself up on at a busy intersection with a hand-lettered sign: “Will work for love.”
Laugh it up
Just to get you started here’s a copyright-free joke from the Internet:
Knock, knock
Who’s there?
Henry.
Henry who?
Henry Kissinger. Did you know that power is the
ultimate aphrodisiac?
I’m not opening the door, Henry.
Damn.
See it
Russell Grieger, a local marriage counselor, directs couples to draw a “marital vision.” Create your ideal relationship and then figure out together how to get there.
Listen harder
Show love to your sweetheart “in a way that matters to them,” says Russell Grieger. “I may be really good at buying you flowers,” he says by way of example, “but if it really matters to you that I help out around the house…I have to know what it is you want.”
Keep a lamp burning
For her tips, Richelle Claiborne, young poet and musician, sticks to the basics. “Be open to all possibilities,” she says.
Be single-minded
One is the sexiest number. As a marriage counselor, Russell Grieger sees a lot of couples. He says that for most of them, “if they can really connect in the bedroom then that carries over into the rest of their life…. Play, have fun and be exclusive.”
Pace yourself
Get a massage in the late afternoon, says James Witkower, who owns Great Hands Massage. It’s sure to improve your love life. “A massage loosens you up and increases blood flow,” he says. “Then, have a nice meal at home and then later on in the evening, in front of the fire, drink some vin chaud, and then relax and play good music with one another.”
Giggle the other direction
Everybody loves a flirt.
Dumb it down
Get real. Lower your expectations. Nobody’s perfect.
Keep a little something to yourself
Read something
Jane Austen: sexy? Alison Booth thinks so. The UVA English professor finds in Austen’s novels just the spark for tired love. “Don’t give a poem to a fling,” she says. “A great piece of literature can give that boost of imagination that any longstanding ‘love life’ with one person needs now and then…. There’s no time limit to enjoying something as witty as Pride and Prejudice, or the poetry of Shakespeare’s dangerously erotic sonnets.”
Don’t forget the sweet spot
You have to appreciate a chocolatier like Tim Gearhart, who says “keep an open ear, an honest heart, and give good chocolate.”
Leave in a hurry
Grab your sweetie and run out the door. No luggage, no cell phone, nothing but a credit card and a reservation.
Get cornered
If she were seated in a romantic corner table, winegrower Felicia Warburg Rogan would have “the most romantic evening a lady could expect,” were Meritage wine, foie gras, filet of beef and a “fabulous chocolate concoction” also on hand.
Get a piece
Miss Lucky Supremo says “sex is just the icing on the cake, it’s not the whole cake.”
Get “In the Mood”
For the straight deal on standards and love songs from the ’30s and ’40s, see 89-year-old clarinetist Dave Kannensohn. In fact, see him at Hamiltons’ most weekends. Here are some of his basics: Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Anthony Newley.
Fly solo
Sometimes, the best moments are spent alone. Take some solitary time and give some.
Get licked
Sometimes, no matter how hard you look, you just can’t find love. When that’s your fate, says Gretchen Zimmerman, sex columnist for The Cavalier Daily, “get a cat. Instant cuddle buddy, dependently loves you, live-in, can’t start fights.”
Read the Bible
Miss Lucky Supremo, Charlottesville’s wisest drag queen and reigning Miss Club 216, sources her favorite definition of love to 1 Corinthians, 13:4: Love is patient, love is kind. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Some of love’s other graceful qualities are listed, too.
Watch the bloom
What does Charlottesville’s Flower Man, Bill Pensyl, say? “You give flowers for any occasion and it’s going to brighten someone’s day. Flowers are bright. Flowers are cheery. Flowers are alive… They’re a great ‘I’m sorry.’ If the guy has done something wrong, the guy sends flowers and the first thing that comes to her mind is, ‘Maybe he’s not the dummy I thought he was.’ No one’s going to send you flowers because they don’t like you,” he finishes. “They say, ‘Hey, I care’ or ‘I do love you.’”
Muscle up
“Find the creative and simple expressions of love.” That’s what Jodie Plaisance from Abrakadabra hair salon says. Try washing his car. Remember “the things that are the simplest tasks, but are the easiest for us to forget in our busy lives.”
Wake up fresh
“You have to treat every day as a new day. That’s the way it is.” And when jeweler Lee Marraccini says that, he’s talking from 33 years of experience with his wife, Pam.
Shorten your skirt
“Basically, remember how to keep your love young,” Jodie Plaisance says.
Remember the family jewels
Over at Montpelier, Lee Langston- Harrison, a curator, shared tips from Dolley Madison’s marriage to James: “She always did little things to make him feel comfortable and like he was king of the manor…a flower on the pillow or a special dessert.”
Don’t forget the magic words
Three little words can improve any relationship. We think you know what they are. Use them often.Contributors: Nell Boeschenstein, Alison Booth, John Borgmeyer, Richelle Claiborne, Tim Gearhart, Russell Grieger, Cathy Harding, Dave Kannensohn, Casey Kilmartin, Martyn Kyle, Lee Langston-Harrison, Bill LeSueur, Erin Loving, Lee Marraccini, Bill Pensyl, Jodie Plaisance, Felicia Warburg Rogan, Eric Rezsnyak, Ben Sellers, Miss Lucky Supremo, Liz Withers, James Witkower, Gretchen Zimmerman.
Contributors: Nell Boeschenstein, Alison Booth, John Borgmeyer, Richelle Claiborne, Tim Gearhart, Russell Grieger, Cathy Harding, Dave Kannensohn, Casey Kilmartin, Martyn Kyle, Lee Langston-Harrison, Bill LeSueur, Erin Loving, Lee Marraccini, Bill Pensyl, Jodie Plaisance, Felicia Warburg Rogan, Eric Rezsnyak, Ben Sellers, Miss Lucky Supremo, Liz Withers, James Witkower, Gretchen Zimmerman.