It's Valentines Day in London, and all day I've seen plenty of couples locking lips and whispering sweet (presumably meaningful) nothings to each other, holding hands and caressing each other ever so softly, all under the guise of a Saint Valentine buried north of Rome. As per usual, I'm all by my lonesome, but no worries; that's why I have hands. To type. To you, dear reader, and thus keeping me company. The only time I came close to ever having a valentine was in sixth grade. Her name was Denise, and she was tall, skinny, brunette, and wore glasses. She had a small mouth with thin lips that always appeared pursed and long legs that, since she was skinny, always left a sliver of space in her clothing. Her hair was thick, but tame; she always had a scrunchy or some other hair clip. I had seen prettier girls than her, but for whatever reason, perhaps due to Cupid's arrow or to our 'chemistry' or 'pheromones,' I liked her. I fancied a her, she fancied me, and as things were done in middle school, there was an intermediary to whom we professed our like-likeness towards each other. We became a couple, but at that age all that really means is holding hands and having lunch together, both of you hoping for a kiss but worried about who was going to initiate it and things like the time and place and whether or not people were watching. I suppose your average things a kid at that age with not the highest sense of self or self-esteem would ruminate over. A few days into our 'relationship' she tells me she loves me, and even at that age where I had no notions of love and all I had gleamed of it I gathered from small and large screens, I knew what we were experiencing was not 'love.' It was attraction--prepubescent attraction at that--and to confuse the two would lead you towards a world where you're committed to people you may not even like that much. And not wanting to experience that at the tender age of thirteen, I broke up with her a few days before Valentine's Day, and ever since I've been flying solo, the only company being Lisa 'Left Hand' Lopez. I'm not exactly sure why I decided to write this; I suppose I thought it'd make for a good read, and it gave me something to write (which I've been trying to do more of, hence this blog). But if there's a lesson buried here I guess it's not to toss around the word 'love' lightly. There's a lot of people and things in this world that I'm fond of, but I only love a select few of them, and I like to think they know it as much as I do.