It's Valentines Day…again. I know, not now, but it is as of this writing. I started a column with a paragraph like this three years ago to this day. And here I am again, doing it very differently this time.

I don't ever tend to recall my mindset when I write; I just do it. Once it's done, I send it off, post it on the site, and forget about it. I do, however, remember writing that column vividly. I was having a bipolar moment, writing about how happy I was to be alone, but yet yearning for something special. This was at the absolute zenith of my bachelor debauchery, which was working quite well for me at the time, but I was beginning to notice a bit of a void. I needed something more. I needed somebody to spend all of my money on. I needed someone to disappoint me. I needed somebody to say: “not tonight.”

I was having far too much fun for one guy, and it was time to cash those chips in. I met a few girls along the way, hurt a few, angered a few, and forgot a few. My table was set in concrete, but as the world turns, so do the tables.

Here I am a few years later, engaged, owning a home, and in couples counseling. Counseling for couples is not something I admonish, but I think problems can be solved in one session, not seventy. A woman just needs to understand a man, and that's it. Take care of him-do what he likes, and you will get whatever you want. When I say do what he likes, at least two, if not all three things pertain to being naked. It's not a tough concept to grasp, yet, people spends thousands on counseling trying to figure it out.

We are having a bit of a nuclear weapons struggle with North Korea right now. They are not about to disarm. Well, I have an idea. Send over a cake that says, “disarm” on it, and have a bunch of strippers jump out of it. The last thing they will think about is a warhead. It would be a different kind.

How about the Middle East? Yes-they are genocidal, gun toting militants looking to destroy any belief but their own, but what is the real difference between them and us? The women are completely covered in clothes! Take them off! Have you ever heard of the phrase “Bask in the pleasures of the mesh?” I didn't think so. Get them in low cut pants and high cut shirts like they are here, and the last thing they will think about is firing a missile. It will be a different kind.

A man is a very simple species, and I proudly represent this breed. In that column a few years ago, I spoke of painting walls all around me as a means to not let anybody into my life, and I asked an imaginary woman to act as my turpentine to remove all that. I found her, in the most unlikely of places.

I'm afraid of ghosts, spiritual, or existing. I tend to ignore the past and move on. A couple of years ago I was in my hometown, and bumped into the best looking ghost I had seen in a long time, my high school squeeze. She had a twinkle in her eye, a Corona in one hand and a bucket of paint thinner in the other. All she needed was a brush. I pulled her out of there, and for the first time, I began to think about something that was not only gratifying to me. It was to be a different kind.