Love, Love, Love… How We Came To Be

DD and I met practically on the first day of Uni and were good friends for 3 years before we got together. I always tease him that our story starts a little earlier for me than for him -- I have this distinct memory of being at our Uni orientation camp and my camp roommate Jo pointing out DD to me over breakfast one morning and saying “XX (referring to the word emblazoned across DD’s T-shirt) is quite cute.” I remember agreeing with her…

For most of 1st year, we hung out in the same group and became pretty good friends, bonding in particular over desperate last-minute mugging in the library before the 1st year exams… I guess I always did have a thing for him cos we clicked so well – we both have an innate ability to keep ourselves entertained talking about nothing in particular! But he clearly had other “interests”, whom he happily told me about, so I never said/did anything and just remained a friend.

We drifted a little in 2nd year when we started seeing other people, but as fate would have it, we both ended up in UK on exchange in 3rd year, albeit attending different Universities. He was in Nottingham and I was in Bristol. But while in UK, my calling card company gave me 30 mins worth of free calls to a local UK number every time I topped up my card. And since DD was the only close-ish friend I had in UK, he was the one I called with my free airtime, and we ended up having 30 min conversations every month. Ironically it was during this time in UK that I came to realise how different we are, even as our regular conversations drew us closer to each other. Still, he remained my connection with my “regular life” back in Singapore even as I adapted to life in UK, something I was grateful for. What I didn't realise was that at the same time I was getting these "we are probably not compatible" feelings, he was getting the opposite feelings and starting to think of me as more than just a friend.

The great thing about being on exchange (as all exchange students would know) is the luxury of being able to take cheap holidays to parts of UK and Europe. And having limited time, we all made the most of it. In spring in 2000, DD persuaded me to go on a backpacking trip to Italy with him. And it was on this trip which we took together that stuff happened. It was kinda like this:

Day 1 – DD cues and nudges me across the road
Day 2 – Holding hands to cross the road
Day 3 – Holding hands to cross the road and for a while longer
Day 4 – Holding hands to cross the road and intermittently
Day 5 – Holding hands

Oops!

A word in my defence – the traffic in Rome is, or at least was, at that time - really treacherous because the cars don’t stop for you to cross at all! You just have to step bravely in front of traffic and hope that they stop. Definitely not for the faint-hearted. So you see, having a hand to hold helped.

Till now, Italy remains one of my favourite countries because nothing is more magical than falling in love.

But that’s not the date we celebrate.

22 June 2000 is the day in Paris when, on the 2nd level of the Eiffel Tower (the top level was tragically closed for maintenance), DD asked and I agreed to be his girlfriend. And he did this by giving me the hook that he used to wear around his neck which, to him, signified his independence. We’ve been together ever since.

******

It's been 12 years since we got together, 7 years since our wedding, and we've gone on the write a whole long other story together.

And yet, when I reached for his hand today, I know I did right to hold on tight when he reached for my hand all those years ago in Rome.