Despite the fact that trillions of people don’t receive Valentines cards, flowers or chocolates you can feel that you are the only single in a worldful of couples if you don’t receive one.  Well I haven’t - apart from the childrens and an e-card which looks suspiciously like it was sent by a friend or my mother!

Having fallen out with Gary a few weeks ago I am now single, but too busy and too hacked off to want to start a relationship with anyone else. Valentines day shouldn’t matter but when the world is full of hearts and flowers, colleagues and friends are discussing their evening plans - romantic dinners etc - and everyone asks everyone else if they got a card it is hard to be Valentine-less.

But maybe that’s more honest than all the cards, flowers and chocolates papering over the cracks of unfaithfulness, distrust and boredom which will reappear tomorrow when the day is done.

Valentines day has a fatal flaw…if love is true it manifests every day throughout the year. If it doesn’t then a day full of grand sentimental gestures really won’t make a jot of difference.