Have I told you lately that you're a contemptible cretin?

It was Valentines Day today, apparently. Personally I try to avoid such things with the same vigour that I avoid cat feces, but somebody sent me an 'anti-Valentine' message. As an expression of ironic derision it completely failed, after all one wouldn't think of sending an anti-Valentine' unless one gave the whole sordid festival some sort of credence, but it did at least remind me why Google had a daffy icon today. I'm told that this is the day for telling those closest to us how much they mean to us. At the time the person closest to me was my office-mate, so I turned to her and told her that I thought she was a contemptible cretin. Then she started crying, which made me feel better about wasting ten seconds of my valuable time on the 'anti-Valentine' debacle.

Some colleagues tried to get me to sign up for a special campus Valentine's speed-dating event, presumably so that they can sit 'downstream' from me and make themselves look concerned and caring after some sensitive soul has been deeply offended by me. They're pretty desperate obviously, and I suppose the Victoria's Secrets ads that surface at this time of year don't help. I refused because frankly I was a little insulted, mainly by the notion that it would
take me a whole two minutes to traumatise another graduate student. (Some of them have a tendency to take themselves a bit seriously, so it's like shooting fish in a barrel.) Anyway, since it's a
special day for couples and coupling I thought I would take the opportunity to give more
of my valuable advice regarding relationships.

A friend has emailed me with a problem - she's been lusting after a Frenchman in her office, and
apparently he has 'a gorgeous body' (what the hell kind of office is this that she's seen his body?). Unfortunately she's in a long-term relationship so she says 'obviously she doesn't want anything to happen'. (I don't know why obviously, there's a 50% divorce rate in the UK at the moment so it's fair to say that the notion of mutual-exclusivity here has been stretched by a fair few people). Anyway, despite generally acting like a sixties schoolgirl ('whenever I see him I giggle, act like a 12 year old and run away!') he seems to be equally attracted, and she wants to know how to tell him that there's no chance of a knee-trembler in the stationary cupboard.

The Captain replies...

Well, for a start giggling and running away is not the actions of a modern twelve-year-old I my experience, pinching his wallet and running away is more the style nowadays. However, that's beside the point. In terms of your problem I really wouldn't worry too much, he's probably just
concerned about your welfare. If a woman in my workplace kept giggling and running away, I would naturally assume that she was in some way mentally retarded, and the company was filling a government quota so that they could claim tax relief for employing 'individuals with special needs'. Either that or he's a pederast and the little-girl act is really doing it for him - he is French after all. In either case, all you need to do is start acting like a fully-grown adult woman in a position professional responsibility (by which I mean restrict your flirting to potential clients and drunken senior managers). If that doesn't work, you could always email your entire office a link to this post, I find it always helps to get these things out in the open.