“Turn off the lights. Light a candle, doom doom doom doom doom, tonight; I’m going to make love to you.” If you didn’t sing along to those words as you were reading them you’re probably too young for this article.

Let me tell you before you keep going that I am a man that believes in love, romance, passion, desire, longing, all those things that guys write books about and sing songs about. I think the worse thing you can do is be too cool to love.

As a matter of fact, love is the exact opposite of cool. Cool is sunglasses and not caring about anything because you’ll be good regardless. Love is handing your sunglasses to your man or woman because they need them more than you and spending the rest of the time squinting your eyes trying to avoid the sun.

Love is sacrifice and a little insecurity because you’re always looking for their approval. Love is a formula for which there is no universal answer. We can have four tests with four different questions and we all get the right answer or we all fail, that’s the beauty of love. Below are my secrets to love and hopefully you see some of these qualities in the one you love or the one you’re hoping to love.

Desire Her

I can’t underestimate how important this is. You have to desire the woman you’re with. Too often we let women become moms, wives, co-workers, daughters, maids, Uber drivers for broke best friends but we forget to remind them that they’re desired. I’m not talking about sex, seven minutes at 5:45 am in the morning before the alarm goes off or ten minutes after a date night is going to happen, she knows that, you know that. I’m talking about looking at her and her knowing that she’s still a woman, your woman. Don’t let her lose her identity, she might hear it from guys she works with or strangers in the street but she wants to hear it from the man she’s given her all too.

Know Her Love Language

I’ll be transparent here and tell you that I thought this was corny when I first heard it. What’s a love language? Women like food, gifts and you not cheating or lying, isn’t it that simple. But turns out it’s not, women need to feel their own individual plan of love. You can’t be romantic or caring on your terms and then get mad at her when she’s not ecstatic. You buy her a nice watch and take her to a five star restaurant and she’s sitting there upset because all she wanted was for you to rub her back and ask her about her day. Once you find out how to love her, loving her becomes easy because you’re now speaking her language.

Do Things Together and As A Family

We get busy in this life; between work, family and everything in between sometimes you forget that making memories is important. Don’t get so caught up in trying to make money or be Superman that you forget to make time for your family. Women, the good ones at least, get turned on by men that are responsible. You being there for your family and for her, if there are no children involved, is quality time that’s always needed.

Here’s hoping you and your special someone have a loving and romantic Valentine’s Day.