A RESTAURATEUR friend was telling me about his first year in business. “Everyone said that January and February would be bad, but I didn’t realise how bad! Without Valentine’s Day I’d have gone under.” Tonight is his busiest of the year. If you haven’t booked, you’ve left it too late.

Whatever its origins, (Chaucer appears to be responsible for first associating love with the early Christian martyr) the feast of St Valentine today is big business.

Years ago, about 20 BC (Before Children), I was a bachelor living in London, running my own successful consultancy business, enjoying my private pilot’s licence. Valentine’s day used to be a cinch. Drive down to the airfield in my sports car with the object of my affection, hire a plane, fly to Le Touquet, lunch at a Michelin starred restaurant, back in time for tea…

Valentine’s Day AD (After Divorce) is more salutary. The pilot’s licence has long since lapsed, the plane, two seater and consultancy are but distant memories and aside from the financial constraints of parenthood (recently estimated at well over £100k over a child’s lifetime) forming any sort of relationship as a lone parent is daunting. Copious research on the effects of separation and divorce on children is consistent; almost invariably there will be a detrimental effect on their relationships in later life. Being aware of and dealing with that provides sobriety and complexity to any subsequent romantic entanglement that most Clinton cards struggle to accommodate:

Roses are red

Violets are Blue

My child will always be

More important than you…

But lone parents and divorcees aren’t the only groups of people for whom Valentine’s Day may be a negotiable challenge. After the last census, the Office for National Statistics calculated that around 40 per cent of the population live in single adult households, either in isolation or bringing up children alone.

For many it is not a life choice, but a reluctant consequence of circumstance; bereavement, family breakdown, children leaving home. To that number you can add carers whose responsibilities for another dependent adult can make them even more isolated and couples whose relationship is about to become one of the 42 per cent of marriages that now end in divorce. Romantic couples are in the minority.

The hearts, flowers and scarlet adornments around the city, driven by a business desire to garner a slice of the consumer market, portray a world that many would like to join, but from which they feel excluded.

It’s time to strike back! My advice? If you find yourself alone this evening, give yourself a well-deserved and well-earned break. Buy one of those discounted supermarket Valentine meal deals supposedly for two. It will provide a decent sized blow out for one and you can have the whole bottle of bubbly to yourself.

Enjoy it - because you’re worth it!