My partner in crime...

I frequently get asked by my friends, colleagues and social followers "how did you and Richard meet?" 

I guess when you have been with someone as long as I have and detest the love story crap as much as we do, you soon find yourself shortening and simplifying the version of your meeting until it almost sounds as though you aren't pleased that you met at all. You'll also find your audience going "oh!?" as if they really were expecting it to be the next Hollywood hit starring Jennifer Aniston and some dreamy male, most probably Zac Efron because apparently that's the only genre of film he can make. 

But I digress. 

With us I still believe it was a stroke of luck... that and the fact that I was apparently 'good looking' enough to add on Facebook about four and a half years ago. That really was how it all started. Before I moved to the picturesque village of Maulden with nothing but its local pubs with suspicious looking men sat at the bar looking like they were part of the furniture, I used to live in a town that ironically enough Richard lived in too. We went to the same middle school and hung out with a similar group of people. This you may believe is where our young love grew before we were torn apart by my parents who wanted to send me away to a private school or something in the country. No, not so much. In fact I cannot remember Richard at all and if it hadn't been for the fact we had hundreds of mutual friends on Facebook I would have batted his friend request away with a long stick like I do with so many other people who claim to 'know' me. I'm looking at you Balthazar Coltrane.

So after that we chatted a bit now and again, mostly discussing our obsession over joining what we thought were hilarious and innocent groups on Facebook, little did we know that all these years later our news feeds would be full of memes, fat people and pictures of cats. We wished each other happy birthday and would occasionally instant message each other. After ignoring each others existence for a while we got back in touch with each other (probably over the latest hilarious group we had joined like 'I will go slightly out of my way to step on that crunchy looking leaf'.) After that we chatted every day and soon got each others numbers which seemed like 'taking it to the next level' at our age. He suggested meeting up which led me into panic in case we did indeed meet up and it became awkward because we had nothing left to talk about and I would just blurt something random out like "velcro", be forced to make up an elaborate story to leave the situation and he would never speak to me again.

However we did meet up and although initially it was to have a nice walk around a local park close to me, the weather soon rained on that parade (quite literally) and I tried to cancel about two hours before we were due to meet. Just a word of warning, never try to cancel a date that close to meeting up because it looks as though you are getting cold feet and not because you didn't want to wear wellies and a stupid waterproof coat. Luckily Richard suggested an alternative- the good old cinema first date! We ended up seeing Toy Story 3 and managed not to cry our eyes out in front of each other, which later Richard had admitted was his worst fear and felt as though he had earned serious man points for achieving this. 

A few days after that we declared ourselves 'in a relationship' and it has been nothing but blue skies ever since. No arguments, no fisticuffs, nothing. That's not to say we don't get on each others nerves nor wind each other up- me with my constant tidying and ability to move things while Richard is out, nor him with his 'I'll do it later' attitude and inability to put away his own belongings.

That's not to say these past three years and eight months haven't had their troubles, as every relationship does. We have had our fair share of difficulties mostly due to our initial long distance and lack of money. However with his commitment to cycling 22 miles to see me along the rather busy A6 and my love of commuting on trains and in taxis we soon worked our way through this and now are fortunate enough to live together. I think this in itself makes us even more grateful to have each other- people who see each other all the time and rather take it for granted soon get sick of each other. Our distance was actually rather a blessing in disguise and made us value the time we did share together. We are also fortunate in that neither of us enjoy arguing or shouting and would much rather curse in our heads and stew over whatever has annoyed us (in my case him leaving crumbs on the kitchen side again and in his case me moving all of his stuff off of the table). 

So there you have it, our not quite so romantic story. Try making that into a film Nicholas Sparks...

Established August 10th 2010.