Happy Valentine

This is fucking hilarious.
I just Googled this guy, thinking that i really wanted to tell you his name, but i'd just better check that he's not a famous photographer first.
Okay, he's not famous, but his website came up straight away.

So, i'll tell you the story anyway.
A small group of us took a selection of our degree show photographs to Germany. We showed our work in a disused chocolate factory that was being used as studios by a group of young artists. We even slept there.
The review in the paper said "There are no people in the photographs of Nina Chadwick."
On the exhibition preview night this huge German guy came to talk to me. I mean, he seemed like a giant to me at the time (i was 23 and a very average 5'5"). He also had the deepest voice i had ever heard in my life. I mean, it was one of those voices that rumbled through you at a somewhat disturbing bass level. I can't remember what we talked about, but he asked me for my phone number and i gave him it, probably because i was too embarrassed to say no.

Once we were back home, i forgot all about it. Until he rang me.
I was living back at my mums. I was mortified when she hands the phone over to me and says, "It's Valentin for you."
This is actually a bit of a shit story because i can't really remember the conversation in enough detail. I'm pretty sure he asked me if he could come over to England. What? In my mums house? That's not sophisticated enough for a trans-Europe affair. I must have put him off somehow. I can't remember if he called again. I was going to live in Manchester in a few weeks anyway......

Doctor

I met this guy at a party when i lived in London. There were lots of pills going around and really good music.
We got chatting and there was a really good vibe in the room we were in. The party was winding down and most people in the room were doing the same. A guy wearing a luminous yellow jacket with the word PEACE on the back brought a tray in with a glass of water for each one of us on it.
He was (and still is i think!) my only ever one night stand. I told him that, but i don't think he believed me.
He told me i had a huge ribcage! Only a doctor could make that sound hot. And the morning after when i asked him if i could use his toothbrush, he said, "We just exchanged bodily fluids. Of course you can use my toothbrush."
Then he walked me to the bus stop. So sweet! He said "Look at us, all we need are some kids and a couple of dogs" (I'm allergic to dogs but i didn't tell him that as i was enjoying the mental picture).
He took my number but i heard nothing.
Ages afterwards at another party with the same group of friends, i saw him again. He said he had called my house and someone had told him there was no Nina Chadwick living there.
I had my suspicions as to which of the males in our house in Brixton might have done such a thing. When i first moved to London, i would ring up my friends at home and say, "You know that programme This Life, well i'm living in it!"
I gave him my number again, in eyeliner on his arm, but the moment had obviously passed.

Wish you were here

If you were here, i think we would have definitely gone out for a something to eat on Friday. Then we would have followed some good food, with even better sex. Probably just lain around reading the papers in bed on Saturday, with even more sex (as the sun shone into my bedroom). Tonight we would most definitely have been going to see the Vivian Girls at the Cockpit.

Note to self: must remember not to let the ones that get away become larger than the real-life loves.

On that subject however!!!.... As my current love-life is a bit dull, i thought i could tell you a few tales about some others that got away. These are a non-chronological mix of guys that i either did or didn't end up having a relationship/sex with. All they have in common is that for various reasons 'it didn't work out'.

There was this guy at a wedding that i was photographing. He was the guy who wasn't supposed to be there; a friend of a work colleague of the bride. Bizarrely, he had the same name as a prominent political figure in the middle east. Obviously i can't tell you who that was (just in case). I thought he was taking the piss when he told me.
He said he liked my hair (which was cropped pretty short at the time). He also said it had always been his dream to build his own house and to have a vegetable garden so his kids didn't have to eat chemicals. I felt like i'd been read like a book. Were my desires written all over me, or was that a complete coincidence that his idea of heaven was pretty damn close to mine? I gave him my number, but when he rang, i didn't answer the phone.
I have no explanation for this, but absolute fear. He was good looking, young and successful, easy to talk to and very interested in me. I was shitting myself, i couldn't even face the thought of talking on the phone, never mind going on a date. One of my friends called me a masochist when i told her that story.
I wonder what he's doing now.

Well obviously eating organic fucking carrots with a brood of well fed kids milling round him (none of whom have got holes in their socks)!

Keep tuned in for more of my spectcularly unsucessful love-life.X