I arrived at work this morning to find a small white package on my keyboard – it was a bar of chocolate wrapped in a compliments slip.

Dear Scott, I thought you’d appreciate some chocolate today!

My stomach turned. The trustees were meeting today to finalise our budgets for next year. What did my valentine know that I didn’t?

My not-very-anonymous-not-very-Valentine’s writer was safe though – nothing lascivious, nothing rude, just some yummy plain chocolate, for which I am very grateful.

You see, when interacting with other human beings there’s the possibility of a difference between we mean in our actions, and how they are interpreted. For example, some lawyers popped up today to say that there’s a fine line between jokey office valentine’s cards, and sexual harassment.

“These are all things that could be okay but could be taken the wrong way and could get out of hand.”

It’s not all bad news though – innuendo and punning relies on the grey areas of interpretation.

And my token of affection was merely a friend cheering me up, as I’d sent round a link to get some free chocolate for your valentine, not a pre-cursor to me receiving my P45.

I could witter on about language semantics and the like, but its late, so I’ll merely wish you a belated happy Darwin’s birthday, and end here. Don’t take it the wrong way though, it has been lovely to chat with you, honest, really. No, honestly. It’s me, not you.