After pyaar, mohabbat Coca Cola...what?

Nowadays it lies furtively in our inbox, a folder tucked away in the many folds of Blackberry, an unanswered voice message, a hickey where the low-rise ceases to rise, the leafy dregs of Mojito, a post on the Facebook wall.

And there is of course Valentine's, the season of pyaar, mohabbat, Coca Cola and the rest of it - the triumph of the marketplace over moonlight.

Love has changed with time.

Elvis Presley's lover wears his ring "to show the world she's mine eternally", while Justin Timberlake's girl "looks like a model, except she's got a little more a**.."

But has it changed - the utter idiocy of it all, for instance?

Elvis would "rather go on hearing your lies/than go on living without you". Timber-lake, the dude, knows "she's freaky, but I like itu00e2u0080u00a6she has got me love-stoned".

Pat Boone, John Lennon, Bryan Adams, Britney Spears - with admittedly vastly varying talent with expressionu00a0- write about the same heady buzz of romance, the same when shards of heartbreak cut through flesh, the same jealous guys and the crying girls in the mirror.

If anything has changed, it is romance becoming even more fleeting than it always used to be. If there is one phrase that has seen sensational rise to power and influence in our time of love and longing, it is this: "Move on."

In the bargain, in the space of one fleeting romance to another, appear vast lakes of loneliness. You may still be with your partner or spouse, but when the romance dies, you are alone again, light from the laptop flickering late night on your face with a galactic glowu00a0- you know there is somebody out there in the wide universe who can make you buzz again, may be forever, but all that is so unimaginably remote that you can't count on it.

It is perhaps not bad that we are far lonelier than our fathers or mothers or grandparents, who often were drugged by a fake and tormenting sense of commitment or honour or taboo or just lack of social opportunity to have a workplace romance or a cyber-relationship. What is worrying is that we don't seem to know what to do with the vacuum between relationships.

Do you go on rebound with people who you'd later shudder to think you have flirted or slept with? Or are you missing out on an exciting and meaningful relationship with yourself?

Surely, there must be a more imaginative engagement with oneself than masturbation, and with every passing Valentine, as the sale of anti-depressants quietly outgrows the sale of cards and romantic ringtones, we will be forced to look at autogamy with more care and closeness.

When we learn to enjoy a long latte with ourselves sitting in a cafu00c3u00a9, or serenade our shadows magically on a beach at night, we might start getting the rest of our relationships right.