It's still four months until February, which is great, because February doesn't even deserve to be a month.

Seriously, in 28 measly, miserable days, one month of February can ruin a whole year's worth of decent, respectable months, like May and September.

Valentine's Day also comes in February, which, as any good cynic will tell you, would seal the deal even if February weren't already such a vile cesspool of sleet, slush, misspent youth and general malaise.

But still, despite weighty evidence pointing to the worthlessness of both February and its totally made-up holiday, some people still seem to like it.

I, on the other hand, know better.

I first got punched in the chops by Valentine's Day at the tender age of 10, after a debilitating two-week illness caused by exposure to February. I'd missed a bunch of school, which was alright, but I'd also missed Valentine's Day, which would also have been alright if I hadn't been so young and naive, a condition I lovingly refer to as "stupid."

Having missed the all-important ceremony of Passing Out Valentines, I convinced my mom to drag my still-recuperating preadolescent carcass to the home of my would-be sweetheart, who I was sure would be forever mine once I presented the pre-fab kiddie Hallmark card I had painstakingly signed for her.

This failure to achieve anything even remotely resembling first base is a shortcoming that would plague me for the better part of a decade.

Not to give the impression that dating has become any easier in the decade since the decade I spent almost getting over the first worst date ever. In fact, what few dates I have been able to scrape together after the first worst date ever have pretty much been -- you guessed it -- the worst dates ever.

For all you folks out there who predate me by a generation or three, let me assure you that things are not even remotely easier on the single crowd these days. In fact, they're much worse.

Despite the advances in technology that make it a snap to contact someone a half a world away in the proverbial blink of an eye, and the women's liberation movement -- which effectively gave women the power to go ahead and pick up their end of the deal, Sadie Hawkins style -- it is actually much harder to get a date than in the good old days.

See, all that new technology doesn't so much help you get a date as it allows the girl you'd desperately love to take out to instantly contact someone that resides in a much higher tax bracket than you, is much smarter than you, and spends all of his spare time -- which he has a lot of, owing to the whole tax bracket thing -- becoming much, much better looking than you are, probably by doing something really cool and expensive like working out in a private gym or steering a yacht.

And women's lib? Please. That just empowers women to see through your line of phony crap and get on with instantly contacting some Adonis-type Internet start-up millionaire. (See above.)

And, if there was ever anything sure to scuttle some poor schlub's chances of going to the drive-in (we don't even have those anymore -- we have theaters. Bah!), it's the Hostile Girlfriend.

Well, my happily married readership, in the Brave New World of dating, you have to navigate a whole gaggle of nattering nabob niñas, because single girls today run in packs, and the would-be paramour must single out one of the herd -- probably lingering too long near the Cosmopolitan bar as her packmates head en masse to the bathroom -- and confound her with a barrage of pop-culture-reference-laden balderdash, making sure to pickpocket all instant-messaging capable devices while doing so. (See above.)

But what of February, you ask. Well, trust me. All of these problems are exacerbated in February.

I even had to talk a Russian lady out of skewering herself with a 250-year-old Corsair sword while sitting on my couch in February.

Still, that's more interesting than buying a heart-shaped box of chocolates, and I admire her showmanship, if not her logic.

And so, faithful readers, kiss your significant other, tell 'em you love 'em, and cry for my generation.

And bundle up. February will be here before you know it.

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Matt McNair is a Weekly Vista staff writer. A native Arkansan, he has been a journalist for one year.