I stumbled across Don Juan de Marco almost by accident, four years ago this very week.

Her name was Roxy, a dancer: slender, supple and succulent. At the time I was living in Tennessee, working as a baggage handler at Chattanooga Central Station. I guess it was my uniform that first attracted her. We weren't really an item, but Valentine's Day was on the way - a good opportunity to increase the probability of a possibility.

Up to that point our dating was on a downward spiral; I'd turn up at the club where she danced and, after her shift, she'd drift over to my corner of the bar, sit on my lap and down a few drinks. But due to my consumption as she worked, I usually ended up blotto, senselessly centless, sleeping in some doorway or alley - great craic, really! So I asked her out for Valentine's night, in an effort to break the vicious circle our "relationship" had become.

Kin Chung, a colleague of mine from Lost and Found, suggested I bring her to his granny's new restaurant, The Crouching Grasshopper. And following a leisurely multi-coursed explosive oriental culinary experience, me and Roxy could head back to my gaff. There, I had organised her favourite romantic film - you guessed it, Don Juan de Marco - and 48 cans of Bud chilling nicely in the cooler. I suppose I'm just an old-school romantic.

So, there I was Valentine's night, downtown Chattanooga, five past seven on Central Station clock, Roxy was running a bit late. That's when I saw her.

Only for her silhouette, I wouldn't have recognised her, as her new hairstyle was two feet higher than usual, all concealed under an Audrey Hepburn scarf.

"Roxy?"

"Hey! How's it going, kid," she said, and joked about not remembering my name. She insisted on taking a taxi despite the fact that my company bus pass was valid for two. Kin Chung's granny was up to high-do with excitement when we arrived - you see, I had given her a silver cross and chain to hide in Roxy's prawn soup, as a surprise. But by the time her soup arrived, Roxy had lowered half a dozen vodkas. Like a nightmare from hell, the woman at the next table began choking on what appeared to be a silver chain, just as Roxy fished a soggy G-string out of the depths of her bowl. Roxy hit the roof. The man to our right reached over and whipped away the offending undergarment saying: "Excuse me, I think that's ours." That's when I recognised my silver cross and chain as it was projected onto their table in a mouthful of prawns.

Obviously Kin's Granny had mixed up the orders. Seemingly, we Caucasians all look alike.

With the liquor loosening Roxy's inhibitions, she loosened her scarf, revealing a head of hair that could be only described as an orange haystack.

"You know, Roxy, foxy is the new blond!" I said in an effort to hide my surprise.

"How dare you!" she screamed. "Call it auburn, call it copper, call it red! But how dare you call my hair foxy!"

She stormed out of The Crouching Grasshopper. I waited for an hour, finishing the two main courses and desserts, but Roxy never returned.

I waddled back to my gaff in the hope she might at least turn up to see her favourite film, but, alas, I encountered the exploits of Don Juan de Marco alone. Don Juan de Marco (1995) is like romance itself - you have to be in the mood. There is no point indulging romantic notions if your heart feels like it's been through a pepper mill. That said, it is a magical movie, exploring the romantic exploits of a psychiatric patient's alter ego, Don Juan (Johnny Depp) - thus acknowledging that romance is just a state of mind.

But it's in the juxtaposition of the surreal with reality that this film excels, as Don Juan's antics inspire his ageing psychiatrist (Marlon Brando) to become more romantically involved in his own floundering marriage. So, for those of you who are less cynical than I am about Valentine's Day, you could do a lot worse than spend the evening in with Johnny Depp, Marlon Brando, Faye Dunaway and Don Juan - but only if you're in the mood.