Valentine's Day can seriously damage your health or your life

Cards, flowers, romantic meals; is that what Valentine's Day means to you? Or is it more a case of stress, envy, crushing disappointment? If you find February 14th a disaster, then you're not alone. Don't get me wrong, I've always been a bit of a soppy romantic at heart. And I've been lucky enough to find the rare kind of man who, like the one in the famous advert, often buys me flowers on impulse. He never forgets an anniversary and manages to choose the sort of presents I actually like.

Stressed out, ripped off

So why do I dread the approach of February 14th? After the frenzied build-up to Christmas and the inevitable anti-climax afterwards, Valentine's Day sits brooding on the horizon, daring you to try and enjoy it but more often leaving you feeling stressed out, ripped off and emotionally wrought.

It's been a very long time since I used to tiptoe breathlessly down the stairs in the early hours of February 14th, having heard the reassuring thwack of a pile of cards hitting the front doormat.

No matter that at least two of these were from my mum, and another from the geeky boy in 5A who'd had a crush on me since we were six.

Occasionally, there'd be a genuinely mysterious one in there, hand-delivered or bearing an illegible postmark, offering the tantalising possibility that some broodingly handsome hero had his eye on me.

No escape

But that was when I was 15, and Valentine's Day had its own special magic, as powerful in its way as that surrounding Christmas or birthdays. Now, it's another one of those Things We Have To Do. We may be romantic, we may not, but we know we can't just opt out.

We can kid ourselves that we don't give a fig for the whole commercialized nonsense, but come the day, if we don't get so much as a card, there'll be a tight-lipped atmosphere between us and the Other Half that could be cut with a knife.

We have to buy a card, but is one enough? If we only send him one and he sends us five, won't he be put out?

And, hang on, we're supposed to pretend they're not actually from us. It's just not good enough to plonk them on the breakfast table with a muttered: 'Happy Valentine's Day, Chuck', is it?