To some people, Valentine’s Day looks like red roses, boxes of chocolate, and reservations made weeks in advance. To outdoorsmen, real love looks a lot less like hearts and ribbons and a lot more like sticking it out with your partner in the brutal cold as your eyelashes turn into fuzzy icicles.
In the outdoors, love isn’t declared in shiny trinkets. It’s endured in shared misery, because romance hits different when frostbite is a possibility. Let’s explore the love languages of hunters, anglers, and other liars.
Outdoorsmen Love Language #1: Quality Time
Quality time doesn’t have to mean conversation. Often it means silence…long stretches of it. That might mean squeezing into a pop-up blind, sitting shoulder to shoulder, watching for the slightest sign of movement. That might mean trudging up a mountain, the only sounds are your exhausted sighs as you fight for your life.
If your Valentine willingly gives up the comforts of a warm couch to follow you to the woods for what is sure to be a much more grueling situation, that’s devotion.
Outdoorsmen Love Language #2: Acts of Service
Acts of service are not grand gestures, they are thoughtful actions that make a partner feel seen. It looks like setting up a treestand for you to hunt from, scouting the best locations and giving you first pick, and filling the thermos full of hot, steamy coffee. It might be baiting hooks and taking fish off the line, packing extra hand warmers because they know your hands get cold, carrying the extra stuff they definitely told you not to bring, and never saying “I told you so.”
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Outdoorsmen often communicate via action. More acts of service might be hauling the ice fishing sled, dragging your buck out of the woods, or holding the legs while you field dress your deer.
Outdoorsmen Love Language #3: Gift Giving
Gift giving tends to be deeply practical and probably seems unromantic to the uninitiated eye. But value is in the perception, and really, what could be more romantic that someone anticipating your needs in the outdoors? A good Valentine’s gift might be socks that actually wick the sweat off your feet, heated gear, a new pocket knife, or meat sticks, protein bars, and electrolyte packets.
Nothing says “I love you,” like spending money on something you know will be immediately subjected to the roughest conditions.
Outdoorsmen Love Language #4: Words of Affirmation
Anyone can tell you you’re pretty. That’s boring. True romace is when someone notices that you walked six miles without breaking even one twig. If you want to really bring out the warm and fuzzies in your partner this Valentine’s Day, try some of these lines:
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- “It’s okay that you got us lost, I love free-ranging through the wilderness with you.”
- “You picked a good spot, it’s not your fault there are no deer here.”
- “That was a hard shot you pulled off, Annie Oakley.”
- “You’re a great hunter, the deer were just being dramatic.”
- “Frozen boogers sticking to your face is definitely your look”
- “That one perch was definitely worth freezing my toes off for five hours.”
If your Valentine can see the good in your outdoor blunders, they are a keeper.
Bottom Line
You don’t need champagne, caviar, and chocolate-covered strawberries. You don’t even need to fill a tag. You just need someone as unhinged as you that enjoys the same kind of type two fun.
One final note: love and cold weather can lead to questionable decision-making, so it’s worth remembering that hunting season is roughly nine months away. Make smart choices out there…emotionally, romantically, and otherwise.
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