Dialogue: It's safer to give Valentine a miss

Valentine's Day: it's hard to ignore. The television, the radio, unsolicited junk mail and shop windows are falling all over each other in an effort to vie for the loving dollar. You can't go anywhere without people mentioning it, planning little trysts or wondering if they'll be the recipient of some florid tribute to call their own.

The covers of February's magazines all claim to know 20 Things To Drive Your Lover Wild This V-Day, or that they've discovered Six New Sex Positions To Make Him Say I Do.

Another article I saw consisted of readers' accounts of being dumped on Valentine's Day.

One girl was sent a note with instructions to meet her man at a restaurant. When she arrived, there were flowers at the table but no beau. A different note was propped up against a glass, saying he couldn't make it, didn't love her and was sending his best friend along instead. Ouch!

But the final tale of woe was the worst. Written by a girl who had been dumped on three separate Valentine's Days, she said she could laugh about it now, but you could tell she'd been damaged for life.

I think one of the problems with the commercialisation of love is that people's hopes get set too high, often resulting in disappointment. If you want hearts and flowers and your partner can't even promise you next week, how can expectations be met?

That's why so many people have an "I was dumped on Valentine's Day" story. Their partners, in the face of having to do the loving thing, realise that anything but honesty is a travesty.

Consequently, despite all the pain and anguish the dumping causes, the dumper decides it's better, in the long run, to part ways than go through with a charade only to inflict a split a few weeks further down the track.

Then there's the pressure for those people who are in love to find the perfect gift. Chocolates aren't very imaginative; flowers are nice but not novel; and lingerie is great in theory but knowing your partner's actual size doesn't guarantee the right fit.

Of course a lavish bunch of flowers, perfume, chocolates, snazzy undies, a night in a five-star hotel and a magnum of champagne will melt the hardest heart, but to go through with all that you might also need to rob a bank, which is probably unwise.

Also, if you have any faith in astrology, this year's February 14 is badly starred. I don't necessarily believe in all that jazz but I still get in the longest queue at the supermarket checkout so I can scan all the forecasts for Virgo until I find a reading I like. Sure, it's a dubious branch of science, but I still enjoy keeping tabs on the Transit of Venus.

There is one astrologer, Susan Miller, in whom my friend Sara puts great store. Sara is worldly and terribly smart, so I think perhaps there is something to be found in her astrologer's predictions, and, according to this woman, Virgos are always on the brink of something fabulous. We're always just about to soar and triumph and to achieve great things.

Understandably, I really want her to be right and, because I want to believe her when she tells me how fabulous I'm about to be, I have to share her warnings for February 14.

Apparently, with Mercury retrograde till the 26th, romantic interludes could turn sour. There are totally dismal aspects on the 14th, she says, because the moon won't have settled down from being full. It's in a bad mood and will be relating poorly to the other planets, disagreeing with Mercury, Saturn and Uranus.

The result? Lovers everywhere could well be disappointed. Wait, she says, to celebrate until at least after the 17th, when the moon is in Capricorn and everybody lives happily ever after. Just in case she's right, it would be wise to heed her warning - believe her or not, I won't be taking any risks.

So, my advice is that you stay home on the 14th, nail the letterbox shut and don't arrange any liaisons dangereux. I suggest you save your money and your marriage and call the whole day off.

Unless you want to make a career of writing to magazines with your first-hand tales of loss.