What’s so special about anonymity on Valentine’s Day? It sounds like a recipe for broken hearts and mistaken identities. It’s time to get personal with your Valentine’s Day gifts.

Valentine's Day is like Christmas for beautiful, successful or charismatic people. If you happen to be all three, every day is like Christmas Day (perhaps with fewer presents). For the rest of us, it's a chance to gauge our possession of the above qualities, or at least to see how good a job we have done of convincing others that we have them. And like all good surveys, respondents remain anonymous and therefore get to express their opinions without prejudice or fear of undue commitment.

So, what is a respectable number of Valentine’s cards and presents to get? One or fewer and you're not trying hard enough. If you're in a relationship, the best number is of course two. One is presumably from your other half, the other keeps them guessing; especially if you have disguised your handwriting well enough. But if the post office has to charter a delivery truck especially for your Valentine's presents and cards, it would be safe to assume that the senders do not occupy the most sincere end of the spectrum, so they don’t count.

One of the most curious aspects of Valentine's presents and cards is that they must remain anonymous. This is quite senseless. If you buy something great, you want the recipient to at least know who it's from. Only lousy gift and card buyers benefit from remaining unknown, and let’s face it, they probably needn’t bother anyway. Unless you include a few genuine hints as to your identity, you are wasting your time, and what can be sadder then that? History must be littered with these submarines that pass in the night, these lost opportunities to become committed to the person who has flashed none-too-subtle amorous glances across office floor, biology lab, air-raid shelter and platform three.

So now we’ve established the futility of anonymity, it’s time to drag Valentine’s Day into the information age. In fact, let’s find the exact opposite of anonymity and put our generation’s stamp on it. And what is the opposite of anonymity? Personalization! Let’s make the near future the era of requited love, returned amour, banished bashfulness and unfettered romance.

With February 14th looming, you really need to start looking for that special item that leaves its swooning recipient in no doubt about its origin.

If you’re already in a relationship, why not treat yourselves to one of the many gifts for two, such as a tour of a vineyard or a barge trip down the Thames? Plus there are countless trinkets and keepsakes to remind your special one that you’re always around, especially when you can have your name or theirs indelibly printed on it.

For worshippers from afar, you can really use your imagination. Have a look for something that will trigger a memory (however dimly remembered) of the time when the chemistry between you was first mixed in the test tube of love. So if it was at a cheesy nightclub during the Christmas do, how about a USB mirror ball for his computer? If you met at a Mexican restaurant, a grow-your-own chilli kit will leave her in no doubt who sent it…