Looking out instead of in

Regarding V-Day. I say I'm not a believer but as most of you know by now I tend to say more than my prayers.

Regarding V-Day. I say I'm not a believer but as most of you know by now I tend to say more than my prayers. I generally like to act as though I am way above the cynical cards and flowers palaver and while it's true that I wouldn't be seen dead in a restaurant on Valentine's evening, deep down in the shallower reaches of my heart I'm still the teenager who never got the cards I wanted from the boys I wanted and part of me has never gotten over that. So naturally on Vallier's morn when my boy said he'd make me a three-course-meal that night I pretended like, whatever, if you feel like it, don't knock yourself out or anything. Dude. Quite why I was talking like an American teenager I can't tell you except I've been hanging out in Dundrum Town Centre a bit more than usual, mainly because of my godchild Hannah's obsession with a surreal place called the Teddy Bear Workshop where bears are stuffed and carry passports, but that's a story for another day.

They are all at it out there? Talking like Americans? At the sushi counter? And stuff? Shudder. So anyway I acted all nonchalant but skipped lightly into work and let it slip that I was heading home later to a rosemantic feast. One colleague was spurred on by my boasting to hassle her other half into cooking that night. Spreading the love and the extra chores, that's me.

So I hurry home expecting soft lights, softer music and a bit of the old princess treatment. And what do I get? Well, none of that, to be frank. "We don't have any olive oil," he says in that voice I recognise as Panic Stricken Paramour. PSP doesn't appear very often but it's disconcerting when he does. There were all the usual signs. Slightly dewy skin. Hair askew. And other, not so usual, signs. Bits of beetroot and pear all over the counter. Congealing chocolate mixture in a bowl. "Would you mind putting the fish in the oven?" he says. "And making the lemon mayonnaise for the asparagus? I'll be back in a minute."

I shoved the carefully prepared fish - monkfish wrapped in Parma ham and sprinkled with rosemary if you must know - in the oven. I whisked the mayonnaise with the lemon juice. And when he came back with the olive oil for the beetroot and pear salad starter I lost it. I am not proud of this bit. I was all (deep breath) "youdontevencare boutmecantevenbebotheredtodoitrightandgetcandlesand

youmakemecookhalfofitsoselfishandmeanandithoughttheredbetealightsandrosepetalsscatteredonthetableandyouhaventevensetthetablesnotromanticitsadisgraceanditsahorribledinnerandthemonkfishstillhastheskinonandthefillingforthechocolatecakeyoumadeismouldyandwheresmycaaaaardddmycaaaaaaaaaaarrd?".

Slam. (That's the door.)

He just said "I think you are being very ungrateful," and we ate the first-class dinner in a third-rate atmosphere. Later he sat beside me on the sofa and listened to the real reason I had lost it, which of course had nothing to do with him or the lack of candles and rose petals. He hugged me then, this man of mine.

And now I need to thank my mother-in-law-in-waiting, Iris, for bringing her son Jonathan into this world to walk this path with me.

You see I can write a sick-makingly sentimental sentence like that last one because this is my last magazine column. This one marks the last time my boyfriend need wonder whether our latest row will end up dissected here; the last time he has to hope his colleagues don't know he lives with me. And the last time they have to pretend they don't.

It's what I want, because it's time to move on, but between me and you, I still feel a tiny bit sad.

I want to thank my long-suffering family, north and south, especially the amazing Ann Ingle. And the editor of this great magazine who believed in me even when I didn't. I want to thank my friends who always knew how to read between the lines.

Here's to all you regular readers for your lovely e-mails, letters and cards, each one a reminder of how connected we really are. And I need to give thanks to the few angry types who sent hate mail. I mean it. You helped me to develop a deeper understanding of the fact that this business of hating others is only ever about hating ourselves. I never want to stop being reminded of that.

The navel-gazing is over. Every Wednesday, in another part of this newspaper, I'll be looking out instead of looking in. I said more than my prayers over the past seven years. Thank you for hearing me.

Róisín Ingle'snew weekly report, "Being There", will start in the features page of The Irish Timesnext Wednesday .