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Valentine's Day, as every man knows, is a perennial lose-lose proposition.

Buy her a sexy negligee and it reinforces her opinion that you have a one-track mind and probably wish she was Eva Longoria. Buy her a flannel bathrobe and it tells her you no longer find her desirable and probably wish she was Eva Longoria.

Buying her flowers says you have no imagination; and, anyway, they'll be the wrong flowers. Buying her a deluxe package at a spa that includes a facial, a manicure, a pedicure, a mud bath and whatever else they do to women at those places and it tells her you think she's become slovenly.

Buy her a 10-pound box of chocolates and you don't care if she gets fat. Buy her a liposuction procedure and you think she's already fat.

Buy her a piece of costume jewelry and you're cheap. Buy her a two-cut diamond and you're broke.

But for men who are getting ready to do their Valentine's shopping any day now, there are plenty of resources out there to tell us what women really want. One of them is Hallmark Magazine, a bimonthly women's lifestyle publication of the greeting card company. It conducted a survey and discovered that what women want most is a Valentine's Day card. Which I'm sure is as amazing to you as it was to them.

But the survey also turned up other important insights.

"Men can breathe a sigh of relief because according to our survey, women don't have grandiose Valentine's Day expectations," declares Lisa Benenson, the magazine's editor-in-chief. "When asked their idea of the perfect Valentine's Day gift, an overwhelming majority of women said "anything as long as it's his idea.' So our advice for the guys is to give from the heart."

Which is terrific advice and may even be partially true. The only problem is that, when it comes to buying gifts, the average guy's heart is about 50 times bigger than his brain. Which is why in any relationship that has lasted for more than an hour and a half, she never sends him out to buy presents for anyone on any occasion.

So what men really need isn't advice on what to get. It's what not to get.

• Anything from Speedway.

• Cash. Some men do give cash to women, of course. But those relationships tend not to last more than 20 minutes or so.

• A George Foreman grill, even it it's pink.

• Anything from the Dollar Store.

• A gym membership. If you're going to give her one of these, you might as well accompany it with a lovely card that says, "You're getting to be a real porker, babe."

• Stuffed animals. Unless she's under the age of 14. And so are you.

• Anything from Hooters.

• A chain saw. That advice might sound obvious, even to the most clueless guy. But according to an Internet posting by Teri Davis of Newport News, Va.:

"My worst Valentine's gift was when my now ex-husband gave me a chain saw. That was the Valentine's Day after he gave me a gun for Christmas. I was so disgusted with the chain saw that I gave him a microwave oven for his March birthday. We are no longer married. Big surprise there, right?"

On the plus side, the guy did get a microwave out of the deal.

Contact this writer at (937) 225-2439 or at dlstewart@DaytonDailyNews.com.