I know I make this Agony Aunt thing look easy but it isn't. Basically you have to be truly incredible, sort of like Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn all rolled into one, with maybe just a dollop of Audrey Tatou on the side just for good measure. What you can't do is let your inner Joan Crawford or Judy Garland out. People don't like that. No they don't.
You have to be 'totes amazeballs'. Kind, sensitive, witty, charming, attuned to the human condition and empathetic (I know that's right because I looked it up on Wikipedia). You also need to be modest and self effacing; remember this isn't about you, it's about them. Yet put a single tippytoe out of place or utter a single misplaced word then it is all your fault, because never forget that they are all ungrateful bastards.
If you don't believe me then I offer up the following example as prime evidence.
Dear Miss Cum
I really enjoyed your pome 'The Ungrateful Valentine'. It reminded me of my valentine, Bethany Hunt, because she is just like you, except she doesn't have worms in her eyes. Why do you have worms in your eyes? That doesn't sound very healthy. It is one of my favourite ever pomes, even though it doesn't have any birds in it. All my favourite pomes have birds in them. The best pomes are 'To The Skylark' by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 'The Raven' by Edgar Allan Poe, and 'The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge which has an Albatross in it. Did you know that an Albatross has a wingspan of over three metres? They do. Bethany is so beautiful she reminds me of a soaring bird of prey. Maybe a Peregrine Falcon. Whereas you're more of a Shrew; captured in her talons as she tears at you with her beak ripping out your innards. Or perhaps she's a Red Kite (I'm just going to interject there because I don't think you want to read the next 1000 odd words where the "perfect Bethany" is compared to various glamorous and powerful birds and I seem to be assigned to the role of shredded vermin).
Anyway, I showered Bethany with all the gifts that you suggested in your pome and still she refuses to go out with me until I can do "the thing". Did I write to you and tell you about "the thing"? I don't think I have. Each afternoon Bethany allows me to go and visit her at her house. It's not just me who is allowed as usually there are three or four of her lady friends there as well. When I arrive I have to take all my clothes off in the porch and fold them all up neat and tidy and wait for Bethany to invite me into the house. Usually we go to the front room and I have to stand in the middle of the room whilst "the ladies" have drinks and chatter. Sometimes I have to stand with my hands on my head. Sometimes Bethany tells me to play with my pee wee. Sometimes some of "the ladies" touch and stroke me with their gloved hands. Sometimes they touch and stroke my pee wee. I don't know why they wear rubber gloves and I don't really like it. One of them keeps putting a finger up my bottom and wriggling it around. Bethany never touches me, she just sits and laughs and giggles with her friends. I wish she'd touch me. Then after a bit, after "the ladies" have had a couple of drinks, I have to do "the thing". I have to sit on the floor and try to curl into a ball like when I used to be a seed in drama classes, but I'm not to grow into a tree, I'm to try and capture my pee wee with my mouth and then suckle on it with my lips. I can't do it, even though some of "the ladies" try to help by pushing down on the back of my head. I might be able to do it if my pee wee was like a mighty sword, as it sometimes is in the morning, but usually it is more like a button mushroom atop two kiwi fruit. Sometimes "the ladies" try to help make my pee wee into a mighty sword by tugging on it with their rubber gloves but that just hurts. One of them even spat in my face before putting her foot on the back of my neck and pushing me down but I couldn't get any closer even though she shouted nasty words at me.
