Stock photo courtesy of sxc.hu

It’s a week until Valentine’s Day and that means only one thing: be prepared for the expectation disaster.

What is the expectation disaster, you ask? Well, it’s a phenomenon that affects both genders.

For ladies, it’s expecting something great, huge, romantic, flashy or unrealistic and getting… well something short of what you hoped for. It doesn’t matter if it’s still awesome. It doesn’t matter if it’s still super sweet. If you fall victim of the expectation disaster, then you run the risk of ruining your own special day– and then of course blaming someone else for feeling miserable and disappointed.

For the gents, it’s thinking you’re Casanova when really– let’s be honest– you probably could have put more effort into it. It’s thinking that if YOU like something, then your lady will automatically LOVE it and have the best reaction in the world. It’s thinking she’ll do cartwheels for your awesomeness when really an “I love you” would suffice. Again, fall victim to it and you run the risk of ruining your own happiness in this moment.

Valentine’s Day is the one day of the year where the expectation disaster occurs the most. While it can happen for multiple reasons, on Valentine’s Day there are usually two main causes for it:

Ladies: You expected him to propose and he didn’t.

Men: You thought that proposing on Valentine’s Day granted you automatic romantic points when it doesn’t.

Here are three keys to keeping your expectations in line and maintaining control of your own happiness.

1) Examine your expectations early on: Have you played out the moment of Valentine’s Day in your head a dozen times and it’s not even Wednesday yet? Just stop right now. Wipe away all expectations and start as a clean slate. Decide on one thing that you need to make you happy on that night and use that as your mantra. This could be anywhere from “I’ll be happy as long as we get to go out on Valentine’s Day” or “As long as she says ‘Yes!'”

2) Put forth some effort: The thing about expectations is, if you don’t express them to someone else, how will they know what you’re thinking? Ladies, do you really think you’re going to die if your man doesn’t propose on Valentine’s Day? Well, then you probably should be dropping hints like crazy or at least tell him far in advance that’s what you think is a romantic proposal. Men, think proposing at dinner is the romance she needs when really you’ve never really asked her what she thinks is fun, cool, romantic, awesome, etc? You could be proposing to the love of your life in a way that she thinks is way too cliche and completely unimpressive. The truth is, if you really do want the end result of what your expectations command, then you need to work for it. Do some homework and communicate!

3) Realize expectations are less important than memories: If he drops the ring on the floor and spends the next 20 minutes searching for it on hand and knee and then asks YOU to help out too, will you be furious? Chances are, if you truly love the guy, you should be able to go with the flow and realize that you have one adorable story to one day tell the grandchildren. Does it really matter if he gave you the type of flower you hate and are allergic to instead box of the chocolates you had been hinting out all week? Things that seem night ruining in the moment tend to be small in the grand scheme of things. Why not enjoy the memories as they come instead of of anticipate things with unrealistic expectations?

I know, it’s tough when you really want everything to be perfect. But remember, nothing is COMPLETELY perfect. If you obsess over perfection, your chances of expectation disasters increase.