Truth be told, it took me a very long time to find Kate. The mere fact that I am forty years of age and have not previously been married says it all. Indeed, many who know me well must have wondered at whether I would ever find anyone willing to regard me as a suitable partner for life. Certainly, whilst it’s fair to say that I’ve had my fair share of offers when it comes to wedlock, it must be said that those offers were exclusively in email form, were from Russia and required me to deposit large amounts of money into a bank account as a sign of ‘good faith’. As much as I appreciated the repeated offers by strangers to travel around the world to live with me in exchange for cash, I declined them all. Call me old fashioned, but I hoped for something more.
Truth be told, it took me a very long time to find Kate. The mere fact that I am forty years of age and have not previously been married says it all. Indeed, many who know me well must have wondered at whether I would ever find anyone willing to regard me as a suitable partner for life. Certainly, whilst it’s fair to say that I’ve had my fair share of offers when it comes to wedlock, it must be said that those offers were exclusively in email form, were from Russia and required me to deposit large amounts of money into a bank account as a sign of ‘good faith’. As much as I appreciated the repeated offers by strangers to travel around the world to live with me in exchange for cash, I declined them all. Call me old fashioned, but I hoped for something more.
For a long time, I believed that in order for anyone to find me a suitable partner, I would need present a certain image of myself. Like a blue-light mosquito zapper, I hoped to lure people to my luminous glow. Through sheer hard work and determination, I was committed to creating a version of myself that the world at large would regard as irresistible. This, I now concede, resulted in any number of strange and, indeed, disingenuous attempts to make myself a more likeable and interesting person.
Now seems as good a time as any to make a confession. I feel it may go some way to explaining what many of you may well have long suspected. My various eccentricities were, in fact, desperate and doomed attempts to be more interesting. For example, during the period 1994 to 1997 I wore a woollen cardigan in the genuine belief that this would make me appear more sensitive. It must be understood that this was during the period in which the ‘Sensitive New Age Guy’ was said to be the ideal man, a theory I managed to single-handedly disprove. Wearing a cardigan did not make me look ‘sensitive’. It made me look semi-retired.
In the summer of 1997, I became the world’s worst vegetarian. This is something of an achievement as the world is full of vegetarians, many of whom range from ‘occasional’ through to ‘lapsed’. I did it not because I was overly concerned for the welfare of animals, although I did own several Morrissey albums, but because all the vegetarians I knew seemed interesting, not to mention healthy, and I thought it was as good a club as any to belong to. With the benefit of hindsight, I doubt that vegetarians were ever fooled by this blatant charade. The fact that I kept smothering my tofu with barbeque sauce was probably regarded as something of a giveaway. These days, I regard myself as a ‘non-practising’ vegetarian and still regret the steakless summer of ‘97. When I finally capitulated and returned to my true, carnivorous self, I thought that outraged vegetarians would intervene and try and make me see the error of my ways. Instead, they greeted the news with a shrug of the shoulder, whilst I marked the occasion by a shoulder of lamb. The likelihood that a large number of animal activists will suddenly appear on my doorstep as part of an intervention is becoming ever more remote.
In 1989, I had my ears pierced. This, I believed, would give me the appearance of a hard-edged rebel with a heart of gold. Instead, it made me look like a poorly dressed pirate. This was partly attributable to the fact that the first earrings I owned were purchased from the local chemist and may have been designed with ladies north of sixty and a purple rinse firmly in mind. It is true, I feel, that it’s difficult to look like a hard edged rebel when you’re wearing earrings that rightly belong to Dame Edna Everage.
From 1993 to 2002, I routinely carried large and difficult books with me wherever I went. These would be produced whilst on public transport, for the sole purpose of impressing all those within my immediate vicinity and drawing attention to my awesome intellect. For years, I carted the works of Foucault, Sartre, Camus and Nietzsche as a not-too-subtle means of advertising what a brainiac I was. It must be said, I do not remember a single word I read during that time. In fact, I doubt that carrying difficult books fooled anyone, although it did ensure that I always got a seat all to myself. In truth, all my attempts to make a better me failed spectacularly.
I met Kate on the 17th of November 2005. My business partner had agreed to give a talk to some clients of a law firm, before booking himself an overseas holiday. I arrived not knowing anyone and it was then that I met Kate. What I remember most about that night is how easy it was to talk to her. I didn’t feel anxious or panicked. I didn’t feel the urge to re-insert my earrings, slap on a cardigan or pretend to be a vegetarian. There wasn’t any need. I could just be myself. In many ways, the conversation that we started that night has continued ever since.
When I look back at the years before I met Kate, I don’t think of them as having been wasted, although I do deeply regret wearing that cardigan for as long as I did. I’d like to think that I was waiting for the right moment. I will be forever grateful to Kate. If history is any guide, it takes a person of extraordinary patience and grace to endure my myriad of eccentricities. It seems as remarkable to me today that such a person should even exist. I am pleased to have found her, when I least expected it.