Love gets commercial at Valentine's...

How many people really enjoy Valentine’s Day? Certainly not Saint Valentine, who spent the 14^th February 270 A.D. having his head chopped off. For singletons, garish Valentine’s promotions that dominate the high street are a reminder that you don’t have a ‘special someone’ to share the day with, while those in relationships are forced to express their love with a card, flowers or dinner surrounded by tables of other unimaginative couples who are paying double price for the ’Special Valentine’s Menu’.

Bitter and cynical… me? Well, maybe a bit, but then the romantic in me says that if you love someone then every day should be Valentine’s Day, not just when Hallmark says so. That and the fact that cupid has a habit of downing a bottle of tequila followed by several whisky chasers before pointing his arrows of Eros at me.

To explain… One year my boyfriend of the time treated me to an early Valentine’s present. On 13^th February he arranged to meet me in the pub and let me buy him a drink before telling me the relationship was over. Nice. The next day with a head still full of mojitos (for an emergency cocktail session ensued) I was surprised to find a red envelope sitting on the doormat. The address was written in his hand-writing, there was no stamp and enclosed was a simple black card with a red heart, signed “?”. The only explanation my fuzzy brain could summon was that he’d delivered the card because he still loved me. He might not be in love with me, but was mature enough to let me know he still cared. Oh, the amazing power of self-delusion! So I rushed to the shop, bought a card and penned a heartfelt letter telling him how much I was going miss him. Imagine my horror then when my mum phoned the next day to enquire whether I’d received a certain black card with a red heart on. Cringe!

Could it be that instead of prompting us to shower our loved ones with romantic gestures, Valentine’s Day actually has the effect of making us stop to consider whether our loved ones are actually still… well, loved? Or perhaps it’s simply that men don’t attach as much meaning to 14^th February as women. My friend Mike confessed that one Valentine’s Day he arrived home to a fuming girlfriend after a weekend away with the boys. He was tired, hung-over and not feeling remotely romantic. “Do you even want to be in this relationship?!” she demanded. He paused, and wondered momentarily if this may not be an appropriate day to respond, “No, actually I don’t.” And said it anyway.

Valentine’s Day proved to be a relationship-killer for my good friend Nicky too. It wasn’t off to a great start as she sat choking on a crouton while at lunch with her boyfriend, throat still swollen from a recent wisdom tooth operation, and trying to hide her annoyance that her ‘love’ had chosen to spend Valentine’s night with his mates, instead of staying in to feed her ice-cream and generally aid recovery. A week later, having not heard from him, she decided he obviously didn’t care enough and called to tell him they were finished. What Nicky didn’t know was that for seven days the poor man had been eagerly awaiting her call, to thank him for the bouquet of flowers he‘d sent. The card he enclosed read “You’ll never guess who these are from,” and heart-broken, he assumed her silence meant that she guessed they were from someone else. In some morbid coincidence the whole mix-up was caused by another (slightly more serious) heart-break… sadly the postman had had a heart attack that day and the bouquet never got delivered.

Perhaps one of my most memorable Valentine’s Days (for all the wrong reasons) was when I agreed to go on a blind date, courtesy of lastminute.com. I was recently single and all ready to spend the evening with my mum, a bottle of wine and a soppy film. My friend who worked for lastminute.com called me up, at the er, last minute, to ask whether I was up for a three- course champagne meal, completely free. Never one to turn down free booze I gladly volunteered myself; all I had to do was dine with a young man who had entered a lastminute.com blind date competition and who’s ‘blind date’ had obviously found something less ridiculous to do with her evening.

And who said romance was dead?

My heart leapt as I entered the restaurant to see a tall, handsome man clutching a rose in the foyer… and sank again as my friend introduced me to my date for the night… rosy-cheeked, fresh out of Swansea University, with a physique not unlike the Pillsbury Doughboy. Though initial attraction wasn’t there, I was determined to have a fun night, so this chubby Aled Jones look-alike and I got stuck into the bubbly. We certainly didn’t struggle for conversation, but there was something about him that made me feel strangely maternal. Maybe it was because I had to explain that the dark stuff in the olive oil was called balsamic vinegar and yes, it was OK to eat. Or maybe it was the blond pudding bowl hair cut.

Actually I think it was when I had to tell him to go easy on the champers, when his flailing arms knocked a whole glass of champagne into his risotto. He was well into his second bottle and showed no signs of slowing… his thick Welsh accent was becoming increasingly slurred, his eyelids getting heavier, and as he made his way to the Gents he ricocheted off the neighbouring tables (much to the annoyance of tall handsome ‘rose’ man who shot an angry look at me). About ten minutes later my date returned, now the colour of Casper the Friendly Ghost. He slumped onto his chair, head in hand. “I don’t feel well,” he moaned. So I did what any responsible mum would do… got his coat and sent him home.

While I like to think age is not important, I’ve learned the hard way that the younger man isn’t always learned in the ways of treating a woman. My friend Emily would agree with me after her toy boy treated her to an all-you-can-eat Pizza Hut buffet on Valentine’s Day, complete with the intimate confession that he had planned a strategic toilet break, to ensure he had enough room inside for the next round of pizza. Now who says romance is dead?!