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  Valentine’s Day is coming, and if popular culture is to be believed, Valentine’s Day causes problems for men. TV shows, comic strips and jokes show men desperately trying to find the right gift for their partners — and sometimes woefully missing the mark. That got me thinking about the hundreds of older men I’ve interviewed about love, relationships and marriage. They’ve been through every romantic problem and relationship conundrum imaginable — and have managed to stay married for a half century or more. The question hit me: If we got all of them into one room in front of a group of men in their 20s and 30s, what would they say? What lessons have they learned that they would pass on to younger versions of themselves? Going back over the data, I distilled three things that old guys would like to pass on to young guys. Think of it as your future self, giving you advice on love (useful for Valentine’s Day and beyond). 1. Start Talking Sometimes in my interviews, I encountered men whom