DEAR READERS: In this month of valentines, this is my love token for you. It's been a long time coming — years, not months — because our relationship needed time to ripen. You and I needed time to build solid trust in each other. Day by day, year by year, gradually we reached the point where our words — yours and mine — are totally believed. Unassailable. In this corner of the newspaper, you won't find platitudes or syrupy advice, because we trust each other to deal only in straight talk. So let's leave the hearts and flowers to others — for the moment, at least — and get on with things.

This Valentine's Day, let it be known that You the Reader deserve my gratitude for your loyalty. Be assured it is more than newsprint — that it comes from my heart.

MY PLEDGE

"Single File" is for your benefit and is grounded in your life. Always has been, always will be. That's my promise.

If you've been following my words in books, online and in respected newspapers for the past 20-plus years, you already know I don't make (or take) my promises lightly. More to the point, you won't find stale thinking under my name.

What you will find is a community of kindred souls eager to welcome a newcomer of any age, at any stage of life. In this corner of the single world, you will be teased, tempted and gently lured into discovering more of yourself. Here you will find the answers to the complex issues of single life; you'll discover that most of them are within yourself, waiting to be discovered.

"Single File" is, as you may have guessed, a resting place where you can enjoy a slow and easy pace. I pledge no trite answers here. But it's a sure thing that here you will learn more about yourself — your strengths out front, your singleness incidental.

This is my valentine to you.

Please email me ([email protected]) for your free parchment copies of the Declaration of Undependence, the Sexual Bill of Rights and my Emancipation Proclamation.

Have a question for Susan? You can reach her directly at [email protected].

Photo credit: Keoni Cabral