“Well I suppose your studies have to come first.”

I put the phone down deflated as the lovely brunette I was to go on a date with pulled out at the last minute citing her university workload.

I have heard this excuse a few times in recent years and I now believe the threat of dating me is spurring a generation of hot women on to academic success.

Blaming your degree is a good way of wriggling out of arrangements as it sounds like it’s not a rejection, prevents rescheduling and gives the guilty party an attractive studious air.

Despite my disappointment it got me out of a slightly tricky situation as we had recklessly planned our first proper date just a week before Valentine’s Day (VD).

This is always awkward as the occasion was invented for couples who have been going out long enough to feel loved-up but not so long they are sick of the sight of each other.

I have known the gorgeous girl in question for a year or so as a friend and we have shared a romantic moment in the past.

If this date had gone ahead I would have felt obliged to get her a present and card.

Financial motives aside I started to wonder what you should get for someone you have only been dating for a few days.

Without a boyfriend’s insight into her mind I had no idea of her taste in music or films, clothes or jewellery seemed inappropriate and anything more personal was impossible.

This left me with boring options like chocolate and flowers.

It was as I was subtly quizzing her about diabetes and hay fever she dropped her bombshell. Thankfully, this was before I started fretting over my choice of card.

I can imagine the look of alarm in her beautiful eyes as she opened the envelope and found herself staring at a picture of one teddy bear handing a heart to another under the banner “I wuv you.”

For some reason card manufacturers don’t seem to write realistic greetings like, “thanks for letting me have sex with you”.

Despite what you have read I am not one of those people who hate Valentine’s Day and smugly say “I don’t need the calendar to tell me when to be romantic.”

These words are usually uttered by tightwads whose most notably common quality is that they do nothing special for their other half on the remaining 364 days of the year.

The only exception to this I have found is a friend of mine, Corey Stephenson, who does seem to be pro-romance but for some indiscernible reason is waging a one-man war on Valentine’s Day.

Sure I have been stung by this day’s remorseless tentacles, but who hasn’t?

I’ve also had my share of good fortune, meeting future girlfriends at Valentine’s Day parties or enjoying romantic evenings out while in a relationship.

In the long distant days when I had a girlfriend I remember several of these special days passing in a romantic haze spending all our time together and laughing at our single friends.

My favourite was the weekend we spent in Amsterdam. I bought her earrings I knew she would appreciate as months earlier I had hidden similar ones she already owned.