Renting a room in a dingy shared house one Easter vac at uni, working at my sponsor company to get a bit more cash. One week in, Emma turned up. I had a room upstairs, she had a room downstairs. I think it was about 2 days later we knew we couldn't keep away from each other, and 3 weeks later until I asked her to marry me.

At the time, I was in the 2nd year of a 4-year uni course, and Emma was starting uni later that year. She was a later starter at uni, as she'd basically being shut away looking after her dad for some time until he'd died the previous year (and I'm still horrified that the rest of her family expected her to sign away those years like that). Anyway, we either got married then or we waited until after uni. It would have been sensible to wait until after uni... so we got married then. :-) Well actually we got married that Christmas, as that was the soonest we could get things together. My folks knew we were very serious, but they didn't expect that, especially since they'd only seen her for about 5 minutes that summer! They took it pretty badly to start with, and I don't like digging my heels in with family and friends, but it all worked out in the end. Coming up to 8 years this year, and we still can't keep away from each other (just being away for 2 weeks on business is painful).

I've never been one for going out on the pull - I'd always believed in waiting for it being right (and still do), although I suppose had I had the chance then I would have succumbed. ;-) But Emma was the first serious girlfriend I'd had. Success first time out, I guess! Curiously, since we got married I know at least one girl who I was good friends with and with whom I felt there could have been something, but a long-term *true* love gets much more intense than that so there's no chance I would ever give that up. However, in light of that, I do think there's more than one person that's right for you - if I hadn't met Emma, it would have been someone else, some other time, and the same for her. It's just that as Billy Connolly says "It's in the last place you look. Well of course it is. When you've found it, you bloody well stop looking, don't you?!"

Graham.