Most men dread Valentine's Day; it's a plain fact. More than 90 percent of the 1,000 men surveyed by TeamDating.com in 2006 said Feb. 14 was their least favorite day of the year, whether they were married or single. Half of the respondents, ages 25 to 40, were married; half were single.

So, yes, most men do apparently hate the pressure of romance. But, oh, there are exceptions.

Just ask Dawn Norkewicz of Port Hueneme. Dawn and her husband of nine years, Joseph, have worked hand in hand to actively keep their spark alive, year after year.

Joseph is an avowed romantic on any day — and an exception. More common is the thinking of guys like Ryan Meyers, 30, of Ventura, who doesn't hate the date but says he understands why it's unpopular with men.

"It could be that it's the pressure to come up with something new and exciting," Meyers said. "I definitely feel it. When it comes along, I feel the pressure."

"Valentine's Day is men's least favorite day because they feel like they can't win," affirmed Julie Ferman, founder of the Westlake Village-based dating site CupidsCoach.com. "They feel like no matter what they do, it will be the wrong thing."

Plus, she said, guys worry about setting up false expectations.

"They think it will be expected all the time if they sort of raise the bar on romance," she said. "They think they're going to have to keep doing it and doing it."

The best way to ease your partner's anxiety? Give him hints, Ferman said.

"Make it easy for your partner to know what it is that will make you happy instead of making it a guessing game," she said. "Circle something in the catalog."

They may get romance performance anxiety around Valentine's Day but, according to their mates, there are plenty of area men who really know how to sweep their partners off their feet — on Valentine's Day and any day of the year.

Here are some of the responses we got when we asked readers to share their most romantic moments.

I do, I do, I do …

The Norkewiczes of Port Hueneme have been married 14 times — to each other.

Every year on their July 19 anniversary, they share another wedding in a different state.

They were married the first time nine years ago in Oxnard. Since then, they have renewed their vows 13 times (they doubled up on states twice and one year, in New England, managed to renew their vows in three states in one day).

The states where they've gotten hitched so far are Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, Oregon, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Louisiana, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island. They also tied the knot in Canada.

After each ceremony, the couple re-enact their very first kiss as Mr. and Mrs. Norkewicz. Dawn always wears the same pearl and rhinestone earrings she wore at their first wedding.

"We spoil ourselves," said Dawn, 37. "It's a private time for us to be together. We're not allowed to do work. If you have to take your cell phone, you have to wait until your partner's in the shower."

Dawn said the couple got the idea to re-up every year after watching a TV news story about an older couple who had done the same thing in many states during their marriage. The Norkewiczes love to travel and thought this might sweeten their vacations, so they adopted the idea.

"When most people get married on their special day, they just have the memory of that special day," Joseph, 36, said. "We have the opportunity to relive that magic every year."

Whenever July 19 nears, Dawn gets on the Internet and books the minister, the location and maybe a cake or some music. If they're in a state with family members, they will invite them to attend the ceremony, but often it's just the two of them.

They've been married in chapels, parks and hotel lobbies, with each wedding running from around $75 to $2,000.

"At Walt Disney World, they don't have any inexpensive packages," Dawn said. "The cool thing is, they give you the cake and the minister and you can pick the songs you want."

Dawn and Joseph, who is a marketing rep for a pharmaceutical company, are diligent about making sure their vow renewal falls on July 19. One year, July 19 arrived on a weekday and Joseph couldn't get off work, so they flew to the state they picked — Oregon — at 9 p.m.

"The minister met us at 12:01 a.m. on our wedding anniversary and we flew out at 6 a.m.," Dawn said.

Joseph's proposal to Dawn in 1996 was also creative. They had met in 1990 when Dawn was a cheerleader at Ventura College; Joseph walked into the stands at a basketball game with Dawn's brother, who was his friend, and Dawn caught his eye.

They dated for six years, until Joseph proposed during a football game at St. Bonaventure High School in Ventura, where Dawn was by then working as a cheerleading coach.

Joseph surprised her during a break in the game when the cheerleaders held up four cards, each printed with a letter that spelled D-A-W-N. Then, they flipped the cards. Each of the four cards held one word that spelled: Will you marry me?

Joseph then approached Dawn and dropped to one knee, and she agreed to marry him. And marry him. And marry him.

"We try to keep each other happy," Joseph said, when asked how he came to be so romantic. "That's the magic to any relationship or marriage is to keep each other happy. Then, the passion and everything else will fall into place."

A place for romance

In the 28 years Peggy and Bruce Stevenson have been together, Peggy said she has never been disappointed by Bruce's sense of romance. He never forgets a birthday or anniversary, and he always makes it special.

"Because we're both teachers, he has had to be very creative as we haven't had a lot of money to spend on occasions," Peggy wrote in an e-mail. "He writes me poems and love songs, cooks beautiful dinners and always goes the extra mile."

The Newbury Park couple, who have been married 25 years, met when both were students at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

Peggy, now 48, said one of her favorite moments in "Bruce Romance History," as she terms it, was during a recent anniversary, when he took her out to eat at a nice restaurant, then told her to keep her eyes closed on the way home in the car as he had a special stop to make on the way.

"After driving quite a while, he parked the car, and then led me, still with my eyes closed, on a very long and winding trail," Peggy recalled. "We must have looked really silly, one person leading the other with both hands, but that's how it happened. Then, abruptly, he stopped us both and said, ‘Here it is!'"

She opened her eyes and beheld the verdant CLU campus.

Bruce hugged his wife and said, "This is the exact spot where, when we were in college, I first realized I loved you and that I would love you for the rest of my life."

Bruce remembers the day well. The two were sitting on a picnic table on top of a grassy knoll that overlooks Kingsmen Park, both studying. Bruce looked over at Peggy and a sense of love and permanence flooded him.

"It didn't hit me hard. It was just like a very mellow realization," Bruce said.

Peggy gives Bruce regular doses of romance, too. For their 25th wedding anniversary, she bid on studio time for him at a silent auction fundraiser. She wanted him to record some of the songs he had written for her when they first met, which he did.

Here are some of the lyrics to one of those songs:

"Never Ever"

(Words and music by Bruce Stevenson 1978)

"You had the company of others

And I couldn't bear to see another.

Oh, darlin' don't you see?

You're such a part of me

That I could never ever look the other way."

Chorus:

"I'll never ever wander too far.

I'll never drift away from where you are.

I'm gonna love you more each day

Because a little never goes a long, long way.

I'll never ever stop,

Couldn't bear the thought,

I'll never ever stop, no never stop loving you."

Beach proposal

Sierra Meyers, 26, thought she was just going for a walk on the beach on that night in August of 2001, when the man who would become her husband proposed.

As she and Ryan Meyers strolled along the Ventura beach where Ryan liked to surf, she looked just ahead and was surprised to see what appeared to be a lot of tiny lights in the sand.

As they drew closer, she realized it was a display of 200 tea lights surrounding a blanket, wine and a guitar. The tea lights spelled: "Marry me."

Ryan then dropped to one knee and proposed, completely shocking Sierra.

"I thought he was joking around since he did not present me with a ring, so my first reaction was, ‘Where's the ring?'" she said.

"I got up and she saw I was kind of trembling," Ryan said. "And she realized it was the real deal."

Ryan had arranged for friends to set up the tea lights so they would be ready when he and Sierra approached.

"We tried to plan it so that the sun was going down," Ryan, now 30, said. "I was hoping that it wouldn't be too windy to blow everything out."

As soon as Sierra realized Ryan was serious — and did have a ring nearby — she agreed to marry him, although he still likes to bring up her "where is the ring?" reaction on occasion — "just to tease," she said.

An iPod moment

"Can't Help Falling In Love" by Andrea Bocelli rarely failed to bring tears to Oxnard resident Linda Kenefake's eyes, so her fiance, Bill Griffith, 54, was determined to have Andrea help him woo her.

Last August, Griffith took Kenefake to a nice restaurant in Ventura. There, her favorite rose — colored yellow and pink — lay waiting for her.

Griffith, also from Oxnard, planned to propose that night, and had asked the restaurant to play the Bocelli piece over the intercom, but they couldn't accommodate him. So, Griffith recorded the piece on his iPod and tucked it into his pocket.

After they ordered dinner, Griffith pulled out his iPod and asked Kenefake, 54, to place one of the ear buds in her ear. He placed the other in his, then pressed "play." As Bocelli serenaded Kenefake, Griffith proposed.

"It's kind of corny, but it's the only thing I could think of," said Griffith, who will marry Kenefake in June.

Griffith tried to get down on one knee, but a large party at a table next to him had him wedged in, so he had to pop the question while sitting. It may not have been exactly what Griffith planned, but it was close enough for Kenefake, who still considers it the most romantic moment of her life.

"The whole evening was perfect," she said.

Her whole heart

The most romantic thing that ever happened to Rose Rivera, 46, of Thousand Oaks occurred north of the border, when she surprised her sweetheart with a trip to Montreal, Canada, to celebrate Rivera's birthday.

"We shopped at the nicest places, we dined at one of the best restaurants in Old Montreal and even won $500 at the Montreal Casino," Rivera said. "What better present to give myself for my birthday?"

Rivera didn't know it, but the surprise would be hers.

One day on their trip, the two returned to the hotel after a frigid January morning of shopping and ordered a warm lunch of French onion soup, brie, chilled shrimp and champagne. The couple sat at their little table by a window overlooking the city when Rivera's lover placed a small box with a red bow on it in front of her.

Inside was a red Baccarat crystal heart.

"My sweetie said, ‘I couldn't think of anything better than to give you my heart,'" Rivera said, "so please accept it because I love you."

Rivera began to cry.

"I did the ugly, shoulders-shaking kind of cry," Rivera said.

Rivera said her partner's thoughtfulness moved her deeply. "No one else had every given anything that meaningful to me," she said.

Rivera didn't want to give her partner's name, as her partner of eight years is a woman who does not want her lifestyle exposed.

Gay or straight, every couple can benefit from a romantic gesture, Rivera believes.

"It's very important," she said. "It's what keeps the lines of communication open — where you can discuss anything and everything. … If you're romantic, it's comfortable and fun."