A young woman I met recently was having a hard time believing, or perhaps more to the point understanding, the fact that I have never technically had a girlfriend.

As she stood before me in disbelief she did her best to come to terms with firstly, what I was claiming and secondly, the reality that what someone overtly displays is often far from what they truly are.

“What do you mean, ‘you’d be surprised’?” she inquired.

“Just that the first impression I gave you – the first impressions in fact that anyone gives anyone – is generally more of a cover-up than a revelation.”

“What do you mean?” she asked with a show of curious exuberance.

“Really..?” I asked tiredly.

“Yeah, I wanna know – what do you mean when you say your first impression is a cover-up?”

“I mean, generally, I believe, the reason that the tender embrace of a woman has evaded me for so long, has to do largely with the effects of a rather, insidious condition, coupled with, I guess, the devastating, belittling and massively self-esteem-crushing way, in which that condition has affected me.”

“What condition?”

I sighed inwardly, not wanting the conversation to have ended up here but knowing that since it had, from this point on I was going to be able to predict practically all of her responses – same old shit, different orchestrator. On the other hand, I could try to draw her off topic with one of my cleverly placed non sequiturs: “One thing you must understand, Jenny, is that, when it comes to relationships and the like, things out country are a little different to what you’ll be used to growing up in the city.”

“You country bumpkins can’t be that different – I’m sure boy still meets girl, boy goes out with girl, boy fucks girl, boy cheats on girl, boy and girl break up and life goes on…”

Non sequitur: success. “Yeah, about that, not quite … See, in Christchurch, the opportunity to live out your aforementioned, life of romantic bliss, is about one hundred and thirty-seven times magnified to what it is in the countryside.”

“So, what, are there sheep involved?”

“Only on Sundays … Seriously, Jenny, out country we can’t afford to be quite so flippant with relationships as city folk can, it’s like, generally, the first girl you profess to love, will chances are, be the girl you’re waking up next to for the rest of your life.”

“Sounds serious … So, you never said, why aren’t you waking up next to the first call you professed to love?”

Non sequitur: fail.

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Professor Love

Photography by Nan C Qatar