2005-02-14 - 2:43 p.m.

It�s about this time of year that the florist in my home town would start rubbing its pollen-drenched hands in glee. For some reason, sending flowers to someone you liked seemed to be a favourite tactic among the boys at my school � mostly as we were all tongue-tied social amoeba needing to hide behind the coward�s shield of anonymity. There was no texting or sending flirty e-mails in those days � it was either put up or shut up, and as most of us spent the year trapped by repression, shyness, chronic acne and unhappily shutting up, Valentine�s Day at least gave us an excuse to be mysterious without the associated creepiness.

At age 14, the object of my affections was the goddess formerly known as Lisa T. She had spiky hair, a Nike cagoule and the school javelin record, a smouldering trio of attributes that proved irresistible to me. Of course, she favoured smokers with their own motorbikes and facial hair, my collection of Dungeons and Dragons scenarios not really giving me much in the way of bargaining chips against the hairy bruisers who circled her after school.

Of course, there was only one thing for it. A needless, overly-dramatic floral gesture. I was accompanied to the florist by friends in similar situations � i.e. it wasn�t just me that was deluded enough to think this would work; it was very much a group delusion. I remember describing Lisa to the bored-looking assistant, asking her opinion as to which blooms were most likely to impress a girl of this calibre � between smirks and yawns, she advised a random bouquet from the top end of the price list. I think she advised the same one to all of us, cleaned up and retired to the Caribbean. I had to correct her grammar when I dictated the card � that didn�t go down too well, either.

The tragic thing is of course that 14 year old girls don�t want flowers. They want tough boys who can buy alcohol and French kiss without cacking themselves, and don�t spend Sunday afternoons pretending to be a fourth level wizard and rolling eight sided dice whilst drinking milk.

I don�t know if Lisa even ever got the flowers. It was certainly never bought up � not even two years later when she was drunk enough to snog me and I was drunk enough to have asked her, and she would never have guessed they were from me. Perhaps the entire florist shop was merely a front to scam money off shy 14 year old boys.

The day after we got together, to the school disco soundtrack of When I Fall in Love (embarrasingly, the Rick Astley version as opposed to Nat King Cole), she told all my friends I tried to put my hand up her top, a blatant lie as it would have taken me four months to even begin to think about planning a move like that.

I see her when I go back. She works on the check out at a local supermarket and no longer holds any javelin records to my knowledge. The florists has closed down, or perhaps just moved its operations to an offshore tax haven.