Poetry Boy

This is probably one of my favourite dating stories ever. Even though it never actually involved a date... It is true though. Start to finish.

It was a warm, summer's night and I'd been at a wedding in Richmond. The bride had looked divine, my table had been awesome, I was half a stone lighter than normal and as such had been filled with confidence and had spent most of the evening being whirled around the dancefloor, and I was brimming with enthusiasm (and champagne). You might think that being the cynical sort of creature who can't meet Mr Right herself, and blogs about it, that weddings wouldn't be my thing, but you'd be wrong. I love them. I love the happiness and the hope and the dresses and the speeches and the flirting potential. But ultimately I love that they make me uncynical, just for a bit. 

Anyway, the breakdown in my cynicism was probably what led to it. There was a bus back to London, full of the groom's drunk Irish family, and a few of the bride's friends, myself included. I found myself sitting next to a handsome boy who'd been on my table. The bride's ex-boyfriend, no less. But I didn't really think anything of it. I was, by this point, a little dishevelled and drunk, if I'm honest. Anyway, so were the raucous Irish, and before we even left Surrey they were singing ditties and reciting poetry, all for the dead relatives, to be sure, to be sure...  I got the giggles and said to my seat neighbour, 'This is brilliant. I wish I could remember a poem to recite. But really, I'm only good at limericks'...

Thus began the banter between Poetry Boy and me. We exchanged email addresses and promised each other limericks for Monday morning. When we got off the bus in central London, such was our bond already that he asked if I needed somewhere to stay as he was living with his parents nearby while his place was renovated. This was moving too fast, even for me - we hadn't even kissed yet - so I said no, pecked him on the lips, and ran away for my connecting night bus.

On Monday, I sent a limerick. He responded in kind. Twice. Then I sent a haiku. He responded again, with his own. I wrote a set of comedy rhyming couplets, I got a set back. I decided to up the ante. I wrote a sonnet.... Silence. For several days. Then I got a sonnet back. I don't know about anyone else out there, but no one had EVER written me a sonnet before. I was amazed, and delighted. Nothing hotter than a hot boy who is also smart enough to out-write me, right?

Wrong. My next email to him was not a rhyme. It just said 'Enough with the sonnets, shall we go for a drink?' I had decided enough was enough. It was, by this stage, nearly 3 weeks since the wedding. And I wanted to actually meet Poetry Boy, sober. And kiss him. Probably.

But silence. Again. And then a message... 'I don't think my girlfriend would appreciate me going for drinks with another girl'.

WTF? I thought. Out loud. Girlfriend? In all the wedding, our coach trip, our poetic endeavours (which had real emails attached about what we were up to as well), and indeed his offer to me to stay at his house... in all this time he'd never mentioned so much as a friend who was a girl, let alone a GIRLFRIEND. So I dashed off a speedy reply 'Gosh. Does she mind you writing poetry to other women?'

His reply 'I'm sure she wouldn't.'

Riiiiiight. Reader, I deleted his emails. I forgot about him. Or at least, I did until our paths crossed in the most unexpected place in the world... Which you can read about in Poetry Boy, part II. Coming later this week...