E-Mail This Article to a Friend Love at first bite If chocolate be the food of love, eat on — especially on Valentine’s Day BY STEVE ALMOND

I know there are lots of people out there who hate Valentine’s Day, and for good reason: you’re not getting laid. I am sympathetic to this perspective, because I am not, generally speaking, getting laid either.

I recently conducted an informal review of previous V-Days on which I might have been getting laid and concluded, somewhat predictably, that I am batting one-for-20 overall, with a pair of ground-rule doubles.

Is this depressing? Yes.

But that’s no reason to hold a grudge against Valentine’s Day, which is, after all, an innocent attempt on behalf of American retailers to exploit feelings of romantic guilt for added profits. Actually, this is one of the things I admire about Valentine’s Day: it doesn’t have any religious or historical pretense. We’re not supposed to sit around stuffing our faces because Jesus was born 2000 years ago or because the Pilgrims sat down and had corn fritters with the locals.

Nope. Valentine’s is pretty straightforward: you chow down some candy, and you mack.

Oh, sure, there might be a candlelit meal involved, or a stroll along the river. But I’m boiling things down here. The essentials are chocolate and sex, not necessarily in that order.

Which is good, very good. Because if there’s one thing that’s just plain sexy, it’s chocolate. And I am not afraid to admit — I am, in fact, rather disturbingly proud to admit — that much of my sexual ideation involves chocolate. When I see a nice fancy chocolate truffle, I immediately start thinking about how nice it would be to place said truffle on a warm female body, let it melt, and lick off the result.

I’m not the only one. Way back before Columbus exported the cocoa bean back to the Old World, the Aztecs were hip to the basic connection. That’s why Montezuma used to guzzle a goblet of liquid chocolate before he headed into the harem for the night. And it’s also why Casanova and Madame du Barry and most of the other horndogs of historical import had a chocolate jones.

The fact is, I don’t really trust anyone who doesn’t lust after chocolate. Let me be more specific: I suspect they’re duds in bed. The consumption of chocolate is such an obvious sensual clue. When I see a woman bite into a piece of chocolate, I am seeing a woman who knows how to give herself pleasure, who is telling her superego to buzz off and indulging in basic oral bliss. And that’s really what we want in a lover, isn’t it? Someone who’s down with basic oral bliss.

Now I know there are folks out there who are saying: wait a second, buddy. Love is not just about sensual gratification. There are matters of communication to be considered, companionship, and long talks about important interpersonal issues.

To which I would respond: yeah, sure, fine, but not on Valentine’s Day.

The big V shouldn’t be about testing your significant other, making sure he or she is exhibiting the necessary devotion. It should be about slipping into, and then out of, sexy underwear and enjoying one another’s bodies, preferably with the help of some nice hot-fudge sauce.

I’m not going to pretend that this agenda has always worked for me. As stated, I’ve mostly come up empty in terms of V-Day memories. Back in third grade, for instance, I developed a major crush on an Israeli girl named Shelly. She had brown hair and crooked teeth and an accent to die for. This being third grade, of course, the prospect of presenting her a card in public was simply too humiliating to consider. So I decided — somewhat ingeniously, I felt — to leave a Hot Pop inside her desk with a note announcing my amorous intentions.

You might be wondering what a Hot Pop is. It is (or was; I don’t think they’re made anymore) a chocolate heart-shaped lollipop filled with bright-red cinnamon-flavored syrup. Yum!

So anyway, I left the Hot Pop in Shelly’s desk. The problem was that Valentine’s Day coincided with a cold snap that year, which meant our teacher, Mrs. Shepard, had jacked up the thermostat to the mid 80s. Thus, Shelly arrived on the big day — looking adorable, as I recall, in a red-and-white jumpsuit with pink leg warmers — opened her desk, and let out a shriek. The Hot Pop had melted all over her precious Hello Kitty pencil-and-eraser set.

Suffice it to say, we did not marry.

But that’s not my point. My point is that I got the basic technique right.

And I refined this technique later on, at Camp Tawonga, where I used a package of Rolos to lure my first official girlfriend, Juliet, into a tryst behind the fire circle.

By college, I had moved on to a slightly more sophisticated approach. I managed to a lure a woman named Suzy back to my dorm room by promising her a selection of Swiss chocolates sent to me by a former roommate. Did we sleep together? I’m not entirely sure. We’d both had a few too many cups of grain-alcohol punch. But I do know for a fact that we did some major making out, because I can still remember the taste of her tongue, with its hint of rich hazelnut mousse.

So to all you cynics, I say this: there’s nothing wrong (and quite a lot right) with using chocolate as a part of your standard mating ritual. It’s not shallow and manipulative. It’s loving and manipulative. And that’s really what V-Day is about, in the end. The chance to explore the vital role unabashed hedonism plays in our staggering progress toward true love.

Just steer clear of the Hot Pops and you’ll be fine.

Steve Almond and his Hot Pop can be reached at www.stevenalmond.com