There are holidays filled with joy, love, laughs and a gladdened heart.

And then there's Valentine's Day.

"I'm not sure he ever recovered," recalls a friend I'll call Clarissa, thinking back on the Valentine's Day when she was engaged to the man of her dreams, who gave her a pair of heart-shaped silver earrings. Nice, right?

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

And wrong.

"When I put them on, I realized they were tarnished. I went insane!" says Clarissa. "I thought, 'This is the end of our relationship!' I remember going down the street, crying my eyes out and calling my friend, 'Matt bought me these tarnished earrings (sob) and I don't want (sob) to speak to him again!' (Assume more sobbing.) It was like the tarnish was a metaphor for our relationship. I remember my family talking me down, 'He doesn't mean it. He loves you. I t was inadvertent.' But what kind of man gives a woman a tarnished gift?"

A man who's pretty worried about giving her a gift again, I'll tell you that.

Looking back now — her 30th anniversary is coming up (yes, to "Tarnish Man"!) — Clarissa can't understand why she went so ballistic back then. But I do. Valentine's Day is to relationships what pythons are to picnics.

Another friend, whose name I can't use, — do you sense a pattern here? — had been married for a few years when Valentine's Day came upon him. "Of course, I was one of those last-minute shoppers," he admits. "So I just popped into a Victoria's Secret to get her something." He paused: "I learned a lot that day."

Here are lessons you males out there may wish to note:

—Buying a negligee for a woman is sometimes perceived, perhaps unfairly, as more of a gift for you .

—Silk is an expensive material, long valued for its drape, feel and cost.

—Polyester is a cheap man-made material that can, to some benighted — and likely, ex — boyfriends and husbands, seem like a cheap alternative to silk. It's not.

My friend learned his lesson the hard way and never bought his wife clothing again — not even a scarf. In fact, after that he mostly bought gift cards. "Let her handle it," he says now, sounding a little shaken.

He's still married — but shaken.

And then there was the funny Valentine's Day that entrepreneur and corporate keynote speaker Peter Shankman arranged for his date. They'd been dating for five months or, "Long enough for her to know my sense of humor."

"So," he continues, "Did you know that on Valentine's Day, White Castle takes reservations and puts out waiter service, placemats, candy hearts, etc?" He told his girlfriend to dress up: "We're going to someplace romantic."

They drove to Queens, New York. They pulled into the hamburger joint. The girlfriend assumed they just needed a place to park. But — surprise!

During dinner, she cried.

They broke up a week later. He has since married someone more fun.

So, all was not lost after a very difficult day. But keep in mind that perhaps the best way to get through Feb. 14 may be to sleep through it. Or do what my husband did in the early giddy days of our relationship: Buy your beloved a pound of bologna. Not as a metaphor. Just as a guilty pleasure that isn't made out of polyester and won't tarnish. What's more, it's unlikely your sweetheart will get three pounds if it on the same day.

Lenore Skenazy is author of the book and blog, "Free-Range Kids," and a keynote speaker at conferences, companies and schools. Her TV show, "World's Worst Mom" airs on the Discovery Life Channel. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (Lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Maria Eklind