I'd pretty much given up...
...on love by the time she came along - I was 20 and feeling a bit lonely after more than two years of 'fuck that for a game of soldiers', an attitude brought on by my first serious girlfriend (see www.b3ta.com/questions/pretentious/post40929/), and a subsequent series of romantic disasters.

So, one of my mates and his new gf offered me a blind date with one of her mates, and I agreed with some trepidation as blind dates are generally a bad idea. The special night came, and my mate and his gf chose that most romantic and classy of venues, a McDonalds fucking drive-thru for our first date. The time at the drive-thru was basically shit for thier company, and things were looking a bit iffy when they drew the date to a close at 9:30pm and dropped us off. Yeah, nice vote of confidence there, guys.

She lived over the road from a big park in town and I had a couple of spliffs on me, so not being quite as can't-be-arsed as our friends, we buggered off into the park for a smoke and some get-to-know-you action - we ended up sat under a tree talking while it pissed down around us til about 5 in the morning. I had to walk four miles back to my place after I kissed her goodbye (our first kiss - so busy chattering we forgot to even get a snog in), but I didn't care :)

We were together for nearly 8 years after that - she taught me a lot about myself, did JT. Sadly, one of the things I learned later on along the way is that I'm gay, which understandably brought about the end of our bf/gf relationship. The day I told her is the day I came out - we ended up going to counselling together because we didn't know how to tie things off without destroying each other. We managed it in the end, and we remain dear friends.

That was four years ago - she has since met another guy and is expecting a kid - the pair of them are over the moon about it and very happy together. As for the guy she's with, I couldn't have picked better for her myself - he's a good lad - got it written through him like a stick of rock :)

And me? Yeah, I've got someone - only been together for a few months, but it's clear that I love him, I'm loved back and things are going really well. It's strange though - after growing up straight to all intents and purposes, I catch myself every now and again thinking 'Fuckin' 'ell, I'm in love with another bloke'.

Apologies for length, but with hindsight my heart wasn't really in it with girls, so length and girth are all I had going for me ;)
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Fri 21 Oct 2005, 9:17, Reply)