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February 14th, Valentine’s Day – one of the three most important days for those that are currently in a relationship as well as for those hoping to be in one soon, and not unlike last year, there are a number of thoughts on the subject that I feel like sharing with you.

There is an old proverb that claims that if someone were to tell you who your friends are, you could, in turn, tell them who they are and I think nothing is more true when it comes to relationships.

It is said that opposites attract but most of the time, successful relationships consist of people that complete each other and while that does not necessarily mean that either partner cannot be the opposite of the other, in general, occurrences of fundamental opposites falling for each other are very rarely seen.

Let me preface this train of thought by saying that I believe many males to be incapable of living a truly blissful life without a companion, for the simple reason that we, the males, in general, depend on female council.

Do not take my word for it though, just grab a couple of books and you will see that a large percentage of authors dedicate their works to their wives or other females, not because it would be the right thing to do (it is), but because, and I semi-quote “she kept my back free and put me in a position to do this”.

And it is not just authors who greatly benefit from their partners, in fact, just about every male in a healthy relationship does (naturally, females do also benefit from relationships, but their benefits are oftentimes very different ones).

The females in our lives, be it friends, girlfriend, spouse, sister or mother, are the ones you can depend on the most, the ones that will stick by you and help you get up again when you have been knocked down and sometimes, it just looks as if we (the males) keep forgetting the support we receive, albeit unconditional in many cases, is not something that should be taken for granted.

Males are often considered the stronger sex, simply because of the way our respective bodies are built, but what holds true on a physical level does not necessarily hold true on an emotional level, for it is the females that do much of the hard work: shielding us, caring for us, healing us and most importantly: loving us. I am not saying that males are incapable of doing the same things, because that would simply be untrue, but in general, females are a lot better at doing the above mentioned things a lot better than we can.

Humans, like all animals, can easily accustom themselves to a certain routine, no matter what kind and while at times routines can be beneficial, certain routines can be a killer for relationships. There is nothing wrong with growing accustomed to your partner per se, after all, that is simply how things go, and in the process you will most probably learn a whole range of things about the other, but that does not give you the right to take them for granted, even though it is easy to accept someone’s unconditional love if they keep giving it to you on a daily basis.
Many a man are likely to just discard this show of affection as it being the way it is (or is supposed to be), routines, however, can lead to fading interest, in both parties and this, in turn leads to people being more susceptible to an unwillingness to give more than it takes to keep the relationship going.

While I am not generally a fan of the concept of a single day specifically designed to overload the important people in your life with gifts that are mostly of commercial value, I believe that many males would be well advised to at least show that they care on this very day.

For those smart males that are looking to do a little bit extra and keep the females in their lives extra happy, I would suggest that you do not stick to a single day of showing your feelings to the other, but rather spread it evenly throughout the year.

Now, I do realize that sometimes things just do not work out as expected and when things start to heat up and there is little time for niceties, the most basic, yet often: more important things, are easily forgotten, so just grab your PDA, Blackberry or whatever you own and jot down a few appointments throughout the year.

Hint: I would go for at least four days a year (although I would recommend making “her” feel special at least once every week). These days are special dates, spread out throughout the year, intended to show that you still value her, still appreciate all the things she is doing for you and still think that, excuse my choice of words here, she is the hottest piece of ass you could ever get and more importantly: wanted to get.

Showing emotions is not something that should be considered wrong or discarded as being anything less than masculine, for it takes a real man to open up your heart and show your feelings.

Take the time to show the other that you care and that you are worth keeping. Do something out of the ordinary for your partner and utilize the way our brains are wired in as that they only notice that which is different easily.

Our brains are hardwired to act as filters in order to protect us from too much information and if you apply this to a relationship, you will that having the guts to be different, having the guts to break through some of the simple routines and do something totally unexpected and keeping her guessing about what crazy, albeit lovely idea, you will come up next can shed some very nice rewards; most of all: the feeling that you made someone else feel great about herself (or himself, just depends).

It has been a tad more than a week now, since my last intern report and I am finally finding some time to actually post something here.

The past few days have been busy; we have been doing a whole lot of testing, evaluating and fine tuning of one of the core components , but it is safe to say that the solution we came up with is working as expected, in fact, it is working so good that we are undershooting the projected and optimized reference values by anything between 16 and 25 per cent, hoah! to that.

Besides testing, we have also moved forward with a number of web-development related projects and I managed to convince my superiors to make use of ExpressionEngine, one of the web’s most powerful CMS as far as I know.

A few weeks ago, I posted on the topic of team dynamics and how important they are for the well-functioning of a group of people that are supposed to work together and now, after three weeks of working at xolo.tv, I can safely conclude that this team has an awesome flow.

Yes, even good teams have those moments where individual members get a tad cranky, but like in every good relationship, it is way better to talk about the things that annoy you than to keep them to yourself and, finally, erupt like a volcano and most probably damaging a relationship (for good).

It is also interesting to see that humans are not unlike dogs, at least in the way they approach each other: the first few days, I had the feeling that we were mainly trying to figure out what my position would be exactly, kind of like a group of dogs sniffing each other out and deciding if the other is a threat or an ally.

So far, I have not been bitten, so I figure they do not consider me hostile and judging by the stuff I get to do, I am actually getting the feeling that they are starting to warm up to me. And … let me tell you, it feels good to be appreciated, because that makes you want to perform even better, impress the others even more.