AFTER all that manufactured euphoria of Valentine's Day earlier this month, it seems that break-up season is now in full swing.

I'm no relationship expert but isn't that usually the case when it comes to love - Feb 14 can break as much as it makes? After all, with the air thick with declarations of affection, couples who aren't quite sure they want to go the distance may begin questioning their motivations for staying together.

Some of the reasons I've heard so far for relationship fallouts post-V-Day include: 'Honey, it's not you, it's me' (commitment jitters); 'I like to go out, but all you want to do is sleep' (incompatibility); and 'You dropped my PlayStation Portable into the what?' (um, unforgivable sin).

I thought I'd heard everything until H, one of my girlfriends, related her story to me. Her boyfriend - now an ex, of course - dropped the bombshell just two days after sending her a bouquet of champagne roses for Valentine's Day. He wanted out, he said.

When she quizzed him for the reason, he said he could not tolerate her putting on weight over the past year.

'I'm scared of fat,' he moaned. 'And I'm scared that one day, you will be so big that I won't even be able to look at you.'

He added that though he loved everything else about her, this weighty issue consumed him so much he could no longer carry on the relationship.

Now, H is nowhere near fat. She's somewhere between a size 8 and a 10. And she doesn't have any rolls of fat bursting from her clothes. So there's no reason for the insensitive brute to feel that way.

So it really surprised me that she didn't proceed to sock him in the head. 'No point,' she said, with a sigh. 'He can't love me for the way I am and I accept that.'

I doubt I could have handled it with so much grace, especially since I've always thought that looks should not be that important.

Yes, physical appearance counts to both sides, especially during the heady days of wooing - if you don't look good to the other person, you'd be hard pressed to even land a first date.

But once a man and a woman have committed to a relationship, like H and her ex had, shouldn't it mean that they love each other unconditionally?

I quickly realised my foolishness when I posed the question to some male friends, who spent the next five minutes whooping at the news that one of their kind had told a woman she was fat - and lived to tell the tale.

They answered that if a man no longer finds his woman physically attractive - whether it's because she's piled on the pounds or grown warts - the relationship is most likely a goner, even if nothing else has changed.

'It's like having a pebble in your shoe,' said one. 'It doesn't kill you but it bugs you like hell. Personality counts but looks can't be discounted.'

And sadly, a man's idea of a beautiful woman seems to rarely stray from societal standards - traits like slimness and good skin.

'Looks are to men what money is to women,' reasoned another when I sneered that all men are superficial. 'So who's being unfair to whom?'

The argument behind this, as I figured out later, stems from evolutionary psychology and prehistoric survival instincts.

Early men would select partners based on their physical appearance because certain indicators of beauty, such as a healthy-looking body, also signalled fertility. The women, on the other hand, looked for men who could provide for their offspring.

Yet it's not hard to point out that women are also so much more forgiving when it comes to those we love. Yes, we are hard on ourselves - most women direct their scrutiny at themselves and other women - but strangely enough, we can put up with paunches and pimples on our other halves.

I, for one, have dated men of all shapes, sizes and defects, but all were always good looking to me in their own way. If he had small eyes, I thought he looked like Bae Yong Jun. If he was tubby, I thought he looked like a cuddly bear.

I know of many other women who would do the same, and unquestioningly too. So why can't men reciprocate such generosity? Sigh, I guess it may be time for me to remove the blinkers from my eyes.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Feb 25 2008.