With Valentine's Day upon us once again, it is time to reflect on the nature of that igniter of hearts, that sublime ideal, that staple of pop lyrics everywhere: True Love. For us men, that means we must take a good hard look at ourselves and decide what we must strive for to reach that ideal, to be worthy of it and of the women whose hearts we seek to win. For True Love, of course, can exist only between a man and a woman, and never mind what Boy George says.

That being the case, we have a problem. Men and women, after all, are very different creatures, and to love someone truly you must treasure her for the person she is. This requires a true and deep understanding, but how can we reconcile that understanding with our own manliness? The masculine ideal, after all, is about courage, strength, ferocity, stoicism, analytic problem solving, adventure. How can we comprehend femininity: empathy, grace, comfort, delicacy, tenderness, and emotion? Our strength and pr ecision can stack the stones of a house, but it takes feminine finesse and artistry to make it beautiful and welcoming. That makes a magnificent team, but it's not the same as the understanding we need.

Allow me, then, to offer a description of the kind of man who can bridge the gulf, the kind of Real Man who can eat quiche, the kind who can enjoy Mortal Kombat and Bed of Roses on the same weekend or indeed in the same evening, the kind of man I call an Artistic Tough Guy.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't mean the kind of 1970s psychobabbling "Sensitive Man" wimp with shaved armpits that cries in public all the time. The only time an Artistic Tough Guy would do that is at a ceremony for war dead, or if his team wins the Supe r Bowl, or something. He is no girlie-man, but a burly man, a real man through and through.

The difference between an Artistic Tough Guy and a regular tough guy is the "artistic" part, the part that allows the Artistic Tough Guy to understand and truly love women while remaining very much a man. It does not dilute or contradict his manliness; it only adds to it. To illustrate, a few examples.

An Artistic Tough Guy may go out four-wheeling in his monster truck, but he will always pause to admire the sunset or hear the birds sing, if he hasn't yet scared them away. He will stop to smell a pretty flower before his truck flattens it. At the movies , he will empathize when the T-1000 slams the Terminator against the wall, feeling sympathy for Sarah Connor and a strong urge to protect her. If a boor insults his date, he will kick the crap out of him precisely because he is in touch with his inner fee lings and feels comfortable expressing them (in this case, through combat).

He is the type of man who would scale a 200-foot cliff, swim a swollen river, and kill 20 minks with his bare hands to make a coat for his wife, the type of man who will enter a gun shop to check out the latest night-vision scope but will always comment o n how adorable the cute little .22 autoloaders are, the type who will write a haiku about his new powerboat. You get the idea.

If you think such men do not exist, how wrong you are! Examples abound. James Bond, for instance. Sure, he's a dead shot, a combat expert and the coolest secret agent in the world, but he keeps his hair perfect and looks good in a tux, now doesn't he? Or Teddy Roosevelt, the soldier, hunter and tough-as-nails leader who nonetheless played with his six kids all the time. Or the cowboy poets in our fine Arizona tradition.

Thus, being an Artistic Tough Guy is truly the best of both worlds: hardy enough for hockey, yet sensitive enough for croquet. The only danger is if the two extremes overlap the wrong way. For instance, you could get your wires crossed seeing Little Women and jump up to yell, "DON'T DO IT! DON'T MARRY HIM, HE'S A JERK! DUMP HIM! REJECT HIM! GIVE HIM THE OLD HEAVE-HO!", causing untold embarrassment to your date.

With enough practice, though, such things need never happen. Get in touch with your artistic side and you, too, can be an Artistic Tough Guy, a manly man capable of True Love. St. Valentine would be proud.

John Keisling is an Artistic Tough Guy. He is also a math Ph.D. candidate whose column appears Wednesdays.