YOU’RE PROBABLY FAMILIAR WITH THE PHRASE “Be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it.”

Well I’ve got another one for you: “Be careful what you write because someone just might read it.”

There are certain job-related hazards that go along with being a newspaper columnist. Sure, they’re not as bad as the guy who works with dynamite, or a snake handler, or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s public relations team — but they can still be tough.

Here’s one of the hazards: If you write it, people will read it. And if what you’ve written is wrong — too bad, it’s out there already.

Two years ago this week, back when I wrote as the Online Dating Coach (remember that guy?), I penned a column called “The Trouble with Valentine’s Day” that was, shall we say, a little on the gloomy side.

There’s this woman in my life who tells me I tend to write from where I’m at — by which she means that what I write typically has a lot to do with what’s going on in my personal life at the time. That woman is my wife, Loretta. But two years ago, when I wrote “Trouble,” she was my girlfriend.

Who had just broke up with me the day before Valentine’s Day.

Ouch, right?

Now, there were different reasons for that breakup, some of which, I’ll admit, may have been vaguely attributable to me. But what I can tell you is this: Never a big fan of V-day to begin with, I was rather less enamored with it that year.

I was so down on it I called it the 800-pound gorilla of the dating world. Yeah, I know, a little dramatic — but you have to remember what was going on in my personal life at the time: I’d just been dumped by someone I didn’t even know I was dating.

Here’s what I mean:

Just a few days before V-day of 2012, Loretta and I were out for lunch together when the subject of a previous girlfriend came up. Now you men out there totally get what a minefield that subject can be, but I thought since Loretta and I were still kind of new to each other — at least romantically (though we’d been friends for a while at that point) — that I was still on safe ground. Miles (months?) from the closest minefield.

For a guy who went through combat training in the service, I sure don’t think very strategically sometimes.

As we were sitting there eating, I mentioned how much I wished that a particular ex-girlfriend would stop contacting me and maybe move on to someone else already. It was right about then I uttered to Loretta the following (poorly chosen) words:

“Maybe I should just tell her I’m seeing somebody so she’ll leave me alone.”

In that instant the fact that I thought Loretta and I weren’t actually yet seeing each other collided head on with the fact that she thought we were. Add to that the events of the following weekend, which included me paying rather less attention to Loretta than would have been prudent at that juncture, and the result is a conversation like this one:

Loretta: You said you should tell an ex you’re seeing someone. Aren’t we “seeing” each other?

Me: No.

Loretta: Really?

Me: You know what happened to me and my ex-girlfriend — is that what you want? Because that’s not what I want for us.

Loretta: Well do you ever see us getting into a relationship?

Me: No.

Which leads to a third rule: Careful what you say, someone just might hear it.

It’s probably about this point you’re beginning to see why, despite the job hazards, I’m a writer. As a writer, when you type the wrong word, you catch it when you’re re-reading, then you correct it and move on. But when you’re speaking and you say the wrong thing, well, it’s like a bell: Once you ring it, you can’t unring it.

It was that last little two-letter word that broke the deal for Loretta — which led us to this conversation:

Loretta: This isn’t working for me.

Me: So is this goodbye?

Loretta: Yeah, I think it is.

It’s amazing how quickly losing something you didn’t even know you had can illustrate the fact that, yes, you did indeed have something, and it was a pretty dang good something, and now it’s gone. Nice going there, chief.

Loretta and I had been off to a good start. But that start had now stopped. On the day before I wrote my column.

About Valentine’s Day.

And how it’s like an 800-pound gorilla.

Here’s some of what I wrote in that column two years ago:

“On V-day we guys are told to express our love for you, in a pre-scripted manner, by society, or culture, or whatever other term you want to use for the 800-pound gorilla. There’s nothing organic about it. We’re told what to do and when to do it — whether we’re feeling all romance-y or not.

“This is the exact opposite of how a man’s nature guides him toward showing his affection for you. When I was married there were years in which I didn’t even mark the occasion of V-Day. My reasoning was I wanted to show my love for my wife because I felt it, not because of an edict from the flower-restaurant-chocolate syndicate. I may not have bought her flowers on that day, but I don’t know another man who brought his wife flowers as often as I did.”

As I read that last sentence about bringing home flowers a lot, I’m reminded how Loretta once told me that that’s the guy she’s looking for. The guy who shows his affection not only because of what day it is on the calendar, but because it’s what he feels, even when it’s not V-day.

So this morning, as I write this column, it is V-day — again.

And on this Valentine’s Day my wife woke up to a bouquet of flowers. She put it next to the bouquet I bought her the day before yesterday. Which was beside the bouquet I bought her just before that one.

So it turns out I like bringing flowers to the woman I love — and if that happens to be on Valentine’s Day, then all the better.

John P. Gavin is the author of “Online Dating Sucks… but it’s how I fell in love,” which is available on Amazon and at Bookshop Benicia.