Do you fail the Valentine test?

Romantic gestures that really say ‘I love you’ after 40

Right. It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow and while we don’t care, obviously, it is about now that our thoughts turn to whether romance is alive in our relationship, or rigor mortis has set in.

We do want romance, but it’s a tricky one to get right, volume-wise and, above all, tonally.

Most of the romantic gestures we’re supposed to crave, we really don’t. No woman, excepting a Kardashian or Love Island contestant, wants any truck with rose petals, chocolates, anything heart-shaped, anything quilted, anything, God forbid, to do with underwear. We don’t want the M&S Valentine’s deal dinner for two, served by candlelight in the kitchen, or, for that matter, dinner on a sandbar in an exotic location. (We once had dinner on a sandbar and it was strangely depressing, like being stuck in a promotional video for a luxury retirement home.)

What we want is romantic behaviour, spread out throughout the year, that is not asked for or expected or that frequent (once a month will do: too much romance makes us feel suffocated). We don’t want it to involve flowers (some people may like to be bought flowers, we say you should buy your own if you don’t want white crysanths) or spas, or bubble baths, or destinations, or special dinners (we like dinners, but we tend to want to have a wine-fuelled debate, so…). And we don’t want stock romantic gifts. Weirdly, not even the things we might appreciate, like silk pyjamas, though it’s hard to explain why. Maybe it makes us feel like chihuahuas receiving treats. But we are very keen on romance. Sorry.

So this is our 10-point romance test. If He’s done more than half of the following in the past six months, then the romance is still alive and kicking. Otherwise, you may want to take steps.

Remembering things about you that you barely do. The restaurant you loved up the mountain. The song that will always make you dance. The one that you both did karaoke to the night you met (although you can’t agree what that was: could it have been Hall & Oates’s Kiss on My List? Or was it Wuthering Heights?

Cocktails had been taken).

Gestures suggesting you have been missed. For example, meeting you off the early flight, even though that involves all sorts of hardship for Him and, practically speaking, it would make a lot more sense for you to get home under your own steam (eg, you have a Gatwick Express return ticket).

Spontaneous whisking-off. Whisking you off somewhere in a car, like the early days, before the Prius and you taking charge of all planning and booking because you know best. Sigh.

Paying attention plus effort presents. Like the ski gloves for the person with the exceptionally poor circulation that had to be researched and then mailed from a specialist outlet in the Austrian Alps. Once I got a Sara Lund jumper because I had full Sara Lund obsession. (Sadly, when I got the Saga Norén obsession,

I did not get the Seventies Porsche, or the leather trousers.)

Once in a while getting a text saying love things – especially effective if He is literally up against it or, say, in the crowd at Twickenham.

Once in a while holding hands in the cinema, not in front of the TV.

On birthdays, and tomorrow, receiving an amusing and spot-on card. Maybe with a dachshund on it.

Dropping everything in order to ring you and talk you off the ledge if you are having an irrational, foetal position in the bathroom, could be hormones but that must never be mentioned, lady meltdown.

Being deluded about you, in a good way. For example, buying you some youthful/ tiny/inappropriate clothing because you used to own something similar when you first met and He apparently can’t tell the difference between you then and you now. Mad, but also Great.

Making heart shapes on the frothy milk in your extra hot, almond milk flat white… JUST KIDDING!

No woman wants anything, God forbid, to do with underwear