Love Is On The Web

Well, it's been in the air for quite some time actually, I just haven't broadcast it on here yet - I've been going out with my girlfriend Emily for almost two years now, and I thought it was about time I mentioned her. I apologise greatly to all those who already know about Emily, but I also want to apologise to Emily for not mentioning her sooner. I really should have done, seeing as how gosh darn serious it all is, darn tootin'.

In all seriousness, she is amazing, wonderful and beautiful, so I thought of no better way to show my appreciation for the last twenty one months by making my new StickLife Chums comic about something that happened a while ago, at the beginning of our relationship.

Yes, this actually happened, and on our first proper date, no less. We were doing the whole back-row thing in the cinema, completely oblivious to the adverts going on - after about thirty minutes of mindless drivel about which deodorant makes your pits smell least like a recycled nappy you kind of just switch off - when all of a sudden, mid snog, a woman's voice whispers to us from the surround sound speakers "Sexually transmitted diseases are spreading..."

Needless to say, we pissed ourselves laughing at the hilarity and irony of the situation, and thoroughly enjoyed the film, though I'm hard-pressed to remember which film we went to see, which will probably get me in considerable trouble - yup, it just has. But at least I paid for it. At least I think I did. At the very least, I paid for the drinks.

Now I apologise right now for the sappiness of what's to come, but I'd like to elaborate on how we met, because I love this story and I don't think it will ever get old to either of us. We happened to be taking the same course at sixth form college, though we had never met or even crossed paths. We both decided to go on the media trip to San Fransisco and Los Angeles, and upon touchdown in San Francisco, I decided to talk to Emily because she was friends with someone I knew in my media lessons, and I knew absolutely no one else on this trip except for my media buddy. We got talking, struck a pretty much instant rapport and became great friends in the first fifteen minutes of knowing each other.

Yeah, definitely San Francisco

On the coach to the hotel we started talking more with some friends she knew - she has far too many friends, she's a socialising machine - and we came up with some classic jokes that we still go over today, and we both chuckle and laugh and reminisce about the old times. The hotel was alright, but we just hung out a lot together and went pretty much everywhere together, and we were getting along great, and I almost killed her with laughter on the boat back from our visit to Alcatraz - Alcatraz itself was great, I'd been there before so I could show off my knowledge and look impressive, which failed miserably anyway. Ah well. We ended up going to Bubba Gump Shrimp on Pier 49 purely because I knew it was there, and that turned out to be the best decision of the day. 

It was only later on in San Fran that we started linking arms, and we started to consider the possibilty that there was more to it than friendship, but when we got to LA things began to get a little more serious. We were staying in the same hotel that my family and I stayed in when we visited LA a few years before, so I knew the area relatively well, and I could take Emily and the friends that I had made around the bit that we were staying, which included taking them to an awesome breakfast diner on one of the last days. Emily and I were holding hands now, and getting pretty close as time went on.

War of the Worlds much? Universal Studios for the win

There was an incident with one of the freakier people on the trip, and Emily was in a pretty fragile state, which left me to look after her, and I felt right helping her out and making her feel better, and we both knew that things had taken a more serious turn in our developing relationship. However, sometime in the trip she found out I had a girlfriend, and I was missing both our one month anniversary and Valentine's day by going on this trip. Now you may think that I've been a heartless bugger, making my moves on a new girl, but firstly I wasn't making my moves at all - the relationship just blossomed, and it was amazing - and secondly I found out at the same time that she had a boyfriend of six months. At the very least, I was shocked. But luckily, things weren't working out and she was thinking of ending it with him long before I came onto the scene. I just kind of cemented the deal.

We both promised not to cheat on our other halves while we were away, because we're both respectable people - really, we are - but our relationship kept on growing. We never kissed on the trip, not once, and we were both pleased with that and we respected each other for it. Needless to say we both had a strong idea of where this was going and who we were going to be calling when we got back into England, but we remained abstinant regardless. On the flight back, however - don't get any dirty thoughts, I am not a dirty manwhore - we were sitting next to each other, and the timing was right. We had our first kiss 30,000 feet in the air. How's that for a story?

And so we came back, ended our failing relationships with our other halves, and started going out, and we've been going strong ever since, including having a whole year at uni apart form each other. As I said, I apologise for the lovey-dovey nature of this blog, but I like telling the story because it means a lot to me, just like she means the world to me. So this is for Emily, and this is our story. God that was cheesy.