Let's Hear It For The Boy

I really must come up with some incredibly witty nom-de-plume for The Boy,which is how I used to refer to him in the early days of our romance. Then again, he's no boy. In fact I'm very tempted to say, in my apparently-continuing besottedness, that he's the first man I've dated after a steady string of man-boys. Which is another post all in itself.

The problem is that it's difficult to come up with something that's not going to make me cringe every time I type it. Which means that Snookums is out. (Not that it was ever in. The Boy is definitely not the Snookums type). This photograph cries out for a 007-style moniker, which no doubt he'd like, but the pose is cheesy enough. Kind of Best-Man-At-The-Wedding-ish. Which is not really a surprise, given that's exactly what he was when this was taken.

Cute though, huh? It seems I have a thing for receding hairlines in my rapidly-approaching middle age. Or at least this particular receding hairline. Funny how men are so sensitive about their hairline when to be honest, most women I know could care less.

I mean, I get the whole "size counts" thing. Because - well, there's not really any sensitive way to say this, but it does. Sorry. After lengthy late night discussions with my girlfriends, I can state empirically that while we're not after the whole John Holmes experience, none of us really ever wants to stop ourselves from asking if it's in yet. Anyway, The Boy has no problems in that department, just in case you were wondering. And, as usual, I have digressed.

How did we meet? Well, that's really another of my deep dark secrets. I'm not sure why, other than it still seems kind of desperate to have met online. Which we did. One night of IM'ing, a dinner date, and suddenly we were a couple. Even my head was spinning with the speed of it all - and I'm a fast girl. So we invented a story for our various friends, about having known each other through work years ago, and then bumping into each other in a bookshop, exchanging cards, getting together for a drink, blah blah blah babycakes.

Actually the story on which we agreed as we lay there one night in post-coital bliss was actually much more complex. It was so complex that the first time I was asked I blushed and stammered and completely forgot half of the details while mixing the other half up. I'm a much better liar now.

Which kind of annoys me. Why do people even care how we met? Why is it one of the first questions people asked when we started seeing each other? And why did it irritate me so much? Well, I know why it irritated me. It's because then I felt I had to trot out the lie yet again, and even though I got it right after the first couple of times, I didn't really like doing it. Not because I'm so morally upright or anything - just that the incredibly, disturbingly comples details of the lie wasted space in my already overcrowded brain.