It’s Valentine’s Day, the annual rite of cringing for the single and dateless. This year none of my single friends will get asked February’s famous question, “Wilt thou be mine?”

There will be no asking, but there will be a lot of wilting. Nothing can make you feel more like Love’s orphan than that winged, pudgy brat with the bow and arrow.

Some of my friends get around the annual cringe-fest by sending cards to friends and family, but I don’t. I refuse to participate in the dumbing down of love. Saint Valentine was the patron saint of love, not friendship. He didn’t die defending our right to trade business cards; he died defending our right to exchange vows.

You see, there really WAS a guy named Valentine. And he died at the hands of Roman Emperor Claudius II. Here’s how it happened: Around 269 A.D. the emperor couldn’t figure out why so few of his citizenry volunteered for his bloody, endless, and unnecessary wars. In a fit of intemperate brilliance Claudius seized on the notion that men weren’t volunteering for his relentless wars because they didn’t want to leave their wives and girlfriends.

True to his nickname, Claudius the Cruel banned all marriages and engagements. This was distressing economic news to wedding planners, florists, and assorted banquet room managers.

But no one was more distressed than a priest by the name of Valentine. Claudius could rule the people, but Valentine wasn’t going to let him rule their hearts. So the priest conducted marriages in secret.

Unfortunately, being a friend to the people made him an enemy of the state. Emperors don’t like being told they’re wearing no clothes by men of the cloth. Claudius arrested Valentine and threw him in jail where he died, like my friends do annually, on February 14.

Before his death, the priest had fallen in love with the jailer’s daughter. Legend has it he left the daughter a note and signed it “From your Valentine.”

Those three words set off a stampede of cheap sentiment, a running of the bull, if you will, through the next 20 centuries. Gradually, February 14 became the date for exchanging love messages, and by the looks on the faces of my friends, the date when you are reminded you have no date.

The Greeting Card Association estimates we’ll buy over one billion Valentine’s cards this year, which gives Hallmark the GNP of a small country. (“It’s the economy, cupid!”)

We can all blame the post office for the popularity of the Valentine’s cards some of us never get. Until the mid-1800s, the cost of sending mail was way beyond the means of the average lover. And worse, the postal service demanded payment from the recipient of the letter, not the sender. Imagine receiving a Valentine’s card, paying the postage due, and finding out it came from somebody you wouldn’t kiss with your roommate’s lips.

My more bitter friends (meaning all of them) refer to Valentine’s Day as Singles Awareness Day. They see love as a gas station: self-service only. Me, I’m only slightly less jaded. I’ve learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.

Last year on Valentine’s Day, my best friend called me up, heaving his annual sighs over the line. Dateless again, he still believed in love. “Omnia vincit Amor,” he croaked unconvincingly in Latin (“Love conquers all”).

“Oh, yeah?” I asked. “Then where was Saint Valentine on February 15?”