She, He & They

She

She could be cynical but this wasn't necessarily a bad quality, I mean, I found it interesting, at least at first, when that cynicism wasn't directed towards me. When she was irritated about something or in a mood, she could be quite cruel.

She read a lot of books, fiction mainly although there were exceptions. Every time I looked over, she would have a new book in her hands. Or so it seemed. She could knock off a thick best seller in 5 hours flat. The speed at which she read was amazing. 

She wasn't sentimental about books like some people are. For her, books were just words and ideas to be consumed in the moment. Disposable items. They were not objects to be hoarded, prized and displayed on bookshelves. 

She was a whole lot smarter than I was. I mean she could engage with people of all walks of life and all professions, bringing a decent point of view to the conversation. A point of view based on fact. She used these facts to form strong arguments. It always impressed me to hear her talk. She had a fairly active social conscience. More than I did.  

She gave up smoking but she slipped on a number of occasions. Ultimately though, when she set her mind to something, she usually accomplished it. I always admired her for that. She had the ability to follow through, a rare quality these days. 

She was of Scottish descent on her mother's side. She had that alabaster complexion and I gotta say, it was kind of confronting when I first saw her naked. All that ivory pale skin. It took some getting used to. She wore denim shorts with trainers or a flower pattern dress and a pair of cowboy boots. Boots she bought on a trip to the US. I’d never thought about going for a woman like this before. She was the exception.  

She was good to talk to. There was always an interesting pattern to our conversations, if you stepped back a little bit and took it all in. A gentle tug-of-war of ideas. It was amazing how sprawling our conversations could become without seeming random or chaotic. We covered a lot of ground but still, every idea was linked and relevant. 

She would use inclusive, framing language when she talked. She would say things like, ‘So what you have just said tells me that……' or ‘Contributing to what you are saying before about…..' A lot of people aren't like that. Most people segway clumsily into their own opinions and ideas. Having said this, later on, when I got to really know her, there were times when I found this kind of thing a bit condescending.  

She hated her phone, describing it as a marketing-corporate-government tracking device. I think she got annoyed at herself because she got easily sucked into the whole social media thing. 

She would sing songs under her breath, giving away her state-of-mind at that particular moment. It was all very literal. If she was pissed off at me, she would sing something angry by a female singer-songwriter. The kind of singer-songwriter who wrote candidly about her relationships. You know what I learnt?       

She taught me how to appreciate wine. Specifically red wine.I had very little appreciation of good wine before then but she convinced me I was missing out so we began spending a great deal of our free time, our weekends and holidays, out in the surrounding wine country.

She said she was allergic to kiwi fruit but later told me that this fear or disgust stemmed from something had happened when she was younger. She had a bad experience and as a result, she didn't like soft flesh fruits in general. Her repulsion had something to do with the texture in her mouth. She wasn’t actually allergic. 

She had short but shapely legs. And I liked her body although sometimes I felt she was insecure about intimacy and perhaps even a little disengaged but then again, I also thought it could have been me, my problems, my own over neediness and insecurities that were making me over-analytical and paranoid about our love live. She didn't seem to instigate sex that often, especially towards the end. That made me wonder. 

She was a highly capable person. She was very practical in many ways. At work, she was very professional. She had very high standards when it came to personal organisation and accountability. She was terrified of putting a foot wrong. And when she did, she was usually very hard on herself. I think the reason for this was she had a fairly difficult childhood. She realised her parents weren't going to help her out because they were too consumed with their own problems. She realised whatever she was going to do, whatever she was going to be in life, she could only really rely on herself. I admired that although there were times when I wished she would lower her defences and get over her childhood. But of course I could never say that.   

She could be a mess in her private life. She had that duality. She would leave a mess behind her as she moved around our apartment. She was incapable of containing her mess or at least cleaning up as she went. It used to drive me nuts.  

She said she wanted to be a primary school teacher because she liked kids but I don't think she really had the confidence to go through with it. Besides the pay wasn't that good. Not compared to what she was pulling down at that time. And honestly, I don't think she had the temperament or the natural repour you need with children. When we went to a barbeque, for example, our friends’ kids wouldn't exactly flock to her. Once again, I think this boils down to that lack of faith in the family structure. Like I say, in her family it was every man, woman and child for themselves. This was the only way she was really lacking in honest self-perception. 

She didn't talk about herself voluntarily. She wasn't an 'inward' looking person. In fact, she used to scoff at the idea of being forced into opening up and sharing. If she got stuck in one of those situations with other women, a sharing situation, she would inwardly roll her eyes. I'm just not a girlie-girl, she would say. This doesn't come naturally to me. 

She rarely gossiped about the people she worked with or the neighbours in our building. Hardly ever. She had a very low tolerance for gossip because she felt gossip was a waste of emotional energy. It actually surprised me when she did gossip. It was almost like listening to someone else’s voice come out of her mouth. 

She talked regularly about her dreams which used to annoy the hell out of me because I don't really care about other people's dreams. She liked to rake over the symbolism and worry that, if her subconscious mind was busy manufacturing these kinds of things, they must hold real significance in her waking life. She kept a dream diary for a time but then she lost it. She turned the entire apartment upside down looking for this thing, never found it. She never realised I threw it away by accident. If she had, well…I would have never lived down the plodding metaphoric significance of that mistake.  

She didn't suffer fools. Even so, people used to mistake her assertiveness for impatience. This tendency was amplified by alcohol. It became an issue for us because I felt like I was always in damage control mode, socially speaking, and especially at work drinks when the white wine was flowing. Like I say, no gossip meant that for her none of that steam was being let off so she just stored it all up. 

She would shave her legs once a week in the summer. There were moments when I was watching her and she wouldn't be aware. She would just be doing something, using her laptop or cooking something or shaving her legs or whatever. And in these moments, I'd really see her as the person she was. What I mean is, not reacting to me or anyone else, just being in that natural moment. And I always thought it was a shame that eventually she would realise I was watching her and the spell would be broken. And she would engage with the world around her. 

She would get the airport three hours ahead of time because she was paranoid that she would miss her flight. For her, that would be the worst thing in the world. We had many fights stuck in traffic on the way to the airport. I learnt to take the sedative for anxiety management well ahead of time. I’d feel that little pill kick in just as we hit that bottleneck near the airport turn off. With the effects of the pills washing through my system, pulling apart the knots of anxiety already building at the sight of planes and the smell of jet fuel, I could just about cope with her bullshit. 

She got so high on magic mushrooms at a music festival once that she freaked out. Or nearly freaked out. She told me that all she could see for three hours was the sagging balloon faces of the crowd and all she could hear was the repetitive drilling down guitars from the Smashing Pumpkins playing up on the main stage. 

She could cook. I could smell that food of hers as I came down the corridor and approached our front door. It developed a pavlovian response in me. If I was hungry, if I’d skipped lunch, my stomach would groan and I’d start lightly salivating. She had a natural ability with food. It came down to her ability to season things. Correct seasoning goes a long way. You serve up a bowl of pasta with capers and cherry tomatoes it can be a good meal. As long as the seasoning is there.  

She believed that money was not a priority with her, although that would change over time. When she got that office job money began to figure more prominently in her thinking. She started wanting a more structured life. She thought about security. She started talking about the future.  

She had two very close childhood friends who she kept in contact through Facebook. I met one of these friends once. Brenda. I wasn't impressed with Brenda and Brenda didn't seem to think much of me either. I later learned that Brenda was very critical of me as a partner and that pissed me off. You don’t come to someone's home, eat and drink with them, and the whole time you’re gathering information to assassinate their character.    

She told me about her past but I always got the impression she was being selective with what she was willing to share. Like maybe she'd had more ups and downs than she was letting on. What I’m saying is, I suspect that in the past, her life had undulated a fair bit. Peaks and valleys. This was a pattern she was used to in life. But now, with me, things had pretty much levelled out and she didn’t quite know how to deal with that kind of stability. That was my theory. Anyway, it annoyed the hell out me because I expected transparency.  

She seemed happy most of the time. She went through phases with the baby thing but I always suspected it was only a passing phase. I'd bring up the idea a few days later and she'd have changed her mind. This is what I mean about her private life being messy, slightly tilted and out of control. She’d let everything fall apart on the weekends and I’d have to pick top the pieces on Sunday nights, to get her ready for work. This is what I mean about the patterns of ups and downs. Even though it was unnecessary, she stuck to a pattern of heavy self-damage and repair. 

She would look at me sometimes and honestly, I would have no idea what was going through her head. 

He

He had a good sense of humour. I know other women generally bang on about a sense of humour being an attractive quality in a man, more important that good looks, but it was true. His sense of humour was unexpected and dry and based on immediate things. Things that were happening to us in the moment. He could get under your skin. I don't think he ever did it on purpose, he just had that funny, cynical outlook and some people would misinterpret him. Sometimes he just took things too far and sometimes, when he was drinking, he enjoyed rubbing people's noses in their own hypocrisy and bullshit. 

He liked to wear white Haynes t-shirts, dark denim jeans and he kept his hair very short. He wasn't traditionally good looking, I mean, he wasn't 'my type'. But then again, maybe that was why I was attached to him. Maybe I needed something different at that time of my life? After the last one.  

He pulled me out of the way of a car once, stopping me from getting hit and probably seriously injured. He said it was simply a matter of a reflexive action but I was impressed. He grabbed my arm and just yanked me back, out of harm's way. He did it without flinching. Things could have ended very differently that afternoon especially seeing as how I didn't have health insurance at the time. It was one of those times you think wow, there really is someone looking out for me. 

He wasn't a naturally caring person. What I mean by that is he always took care of other people first but it seemed more out of duty than something he really wanted to do. I didn't mind this quality because it showed me he was able to prioritise what he should do over what he wanted to do. In my experience, a lot of men can't do that. Not in the long run. Anyway, what is the difference? As long as that person does the right thing by others. 

He's cheating on me, that's what I used to think. Sometimes I got paranoid because his natural inclination is to flirt with women. He flirts with other women without thinking about it. I used to check his phone for messages or whatever. I felt like a stupid jealous girlfriend when I did that. It was demeaning to find myself in that position. It used to drive me crazy.  

He was innately confident in himself. More confident than most of the men I have gone out with. He said that most people were scared, paper tigers. And once you knew this, it made life a lot easier. Despite all this, he still had his fair share of ticks and neuroses. 

He didn't have trouble talking about his feelings. In fact, for a guy, sometimes I felt like he overshared. Sometimes I found it all a little bit narcissistic. Like he needed emotional acknowledgement or validation all the time. People often said we had things backwards, him being more feminine in regards constantly expressing his feelings and me being more...'stoic'. That is what someone called me once. 'Stoic'. Like I was a sea captain or something. Anyway, he was always looking back, ruminating about the past, about what things meant, whereas I had no time for that. In my opinion, the past is the past.  

He had a group of friends who were threatened by me. Well, at first they were. And I knew this caused him a great deal of stress. He had known these guys for a long time. Since primary school. With me, I know he felt conflicted. Like he was being pulled in two different directions at once. One of these friends was forever trying to lump me in that ‘Ball-and-chain-girlfriend-cutting-my-friend’s-balls-off’ category. I found it all extremely childish. I remember telling this friend that he needed to grow up. This was after that same friend tried to make out with me at a party. What a guy! What a mate! 

He was naturally creative. I mean, he didn't paint or draw but he had lots of ideas and thought about things in a creative way. He was one of these people who came at things from a slightly different, if not impractical way at all times. 

He had an average libido. Our sex life was great for...I would say the first two years then we settled into something of a routine. Or was it a slump? Anyway, it became reliable affection. I know that sounds depressing, the way I'm saying it now, but it wasn't. I'm not blaming this on him. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. I don’t know….I don’t know was I was expecting. 

He had a lot of pride. I cheated on him once. I would never tell him this because he would have left me. I know he would have. I felt terrible about it for a short time then I got on with my life. The way I looked at it....since it was a mistake and since I didn't plan to do this kind of thing on a regular basis, I decided to never tell him about this encounter that meant nothing to me anyway. 

He had aspirations to be a journalist and a writer. He tried for a number of years, quietly submitting his work to different online publications. He thought quiet diligence would pay off. He ended up in a marketing job which was only supposed to be a temporary measure. To pay the bills. 

He had a nauseatingly ordinary and nurturing upbringing. I know how that sounds but I can’t help myself. Compared to my own childhood, his was like a sitcom. I looked at some of the opportunities he had available to him, growing up I mean, and I'd think how come you weren't able to do more with your life? Then I'd stop myself and think, 'No,…you can't think that way....after all, it's all relative. Right?'  

He was very superstitious about airline crashes. He had a ritual before he flew anywhere. He used to pack his suitcase in a certain way. He generally took medication to fly. He'd pop a pill as we drove to the airport and we’d end up at the bar for pre-flight drinks. Once we landed in Rome and I couldn’t wake him up properly. He was like a big, drugged bear stumbling around the airport.     

He and I had so much time to burn back in those days, walking around, smoking cigarettes and talking about....god knows what. I can't even remember. So much talking and I can't remember anything we actually said. I did notice that he hardly ever talked about his future. Or when he did, he would neglect to include me in it. 'I might go back to study', he would say. Things like that. 'I'. 'I might do this.....' or 'In five years time, I plan to.....'. Understandably I found this a bit upsetting. I wasn't getting any younger and I was through messing around. I wanted this to lead to something meaningful. I started keeping a running tally in my head. The number of times 'I' appeared when he described his future versus the number of times 'I' didn't appear in his future. The longer we knew each other, the longer we were together, the less 'I' appeared in his future. That used to worry me. Of course it did. No one wants to invest their time in a partnership which is doomed to fail.  

He worked in a bookstore for quite a long time. He said he was happy with this kind of non-demanding work but I knew it was a slump. He kept a pint of hard liquor behind the counter like some kind of beatnik writer. I think he was experimenting with the idea of being a heavy drinker as opposed to really being one. I knew what living with a real heavy drinker was really like. My dad was one. I knew how they think. How they function. I suspect he thought his heavy drinking was an outward indication of soulfulness or something. I asked him on several occasions if he needed help to stop and he said no, he was fine. 

He used to bring me books home. I’d smash through them in a day. One of his many money making schemes which helped him justify getting a real job, my father sold speeding reading courses back in the ’80’s. Speed reading was a fad back then. I learnt how to do it. Once you get a general sense of a book all you have to do is fill in the gaps. It's not magic.   

He wanted to go to japan, to go snowboarding, but he never had any money. He read all of Haruki Murakami's books even though he felt many of them were plodding and morbid. He just liked getting inside the Japanese mindset. When we broke up, that was when he finally made it over to Japan. He lived there teaching English and he had a few pretty Japanese girlfriends like most male expatriates do. I could see all this unfolding on Facebook. 

He came back to me after we split up the first time. This was before the garage sale and before Japan. I thought we might make it. I was willing to give it another go. The problem was, I think I'd become his safety blanket at that point. It wasn't healthy.  

They

They got together through a mutual friend who he was going out with at the time. He liked her more than the mutual friend.

They formed their relationship on Facebook and in face-to-face meetings at various bars, a few movies and at a restaurant near the Opera House. They went on a bush hike, following a 10k trail which you'd picked up from the Waterfall train station. He’d considered kissing her around the halfway point, with the view of Sydney in the distance by decided to wait. It seemed like his intentions could have been misconstrued, seeing as how they were out in the middle of nowhere.  

They had sex for the first time at her apartment. They made it on the Egyptian rug while Rigly Scott's classic sci-fi movie 'Alien' played on a flatscreen television. Their physical excitement, the two bottles of wine and images of Sigourney Weaver's heroic face mingled together and would become part of their own couple mythology. For this reason whenever either of them came across images of the Alien creature in the sequels or on a random poster or because an independent movie theatre was playing a retrospective of the Alien films, they would both experience vaguely erotic associations.  

They moved in together, into his place which was larger, lugging boxes and her sofa up the stairs, accidentally mashing her hand against the wall in the process and ending up in the ER. The doctor came sweeping in like an actor playing a medical professional, clipped the x-ray onto the backlit viewing surface and said, okay then…what we have here are broken metacarpals. Here and here, he said, tapping his pen against the x-ray image. Six weeks in pink plaster.

Their separate groups of friends slowly began to merge and overlap, in effect becoming one large group. Or near enough. They socialised in pubs, restaurants, the park, the beach and at house parties.   

They spent weekends driving around to New South Wales wineries in a series of rental car, from vineyard to vineyard, tasting wine, usually slightly pissed, accumulating boxes of wine on their credit cards and in the boot of the rental car.

They talked a great deal about the state of their relationship with other people, friends who served as confidants. And at first, their relationship was simple and good and enjoyable. But later on, as time passed, it became more complex in both good and bad ways. After all the initial fireworks died down, there was an adjustment period towards the end of the second year. A period where they were forced to come to terms with each other as real people with neuroses, shortcomings and bad habits. People who made mistakes and who had lives which were more complex than what was advertised during the courting period. Basically, they had to come to terms with the fact that all human beings are falsely advertised. 

  

They developed a reliable pattern of fighting, almost like a carefully choreographed dance which  they performed on average once a fortnight. This was a regular letting off of steam, It became so natural to them that they were shocked when friends began describing them as a cantankerous and destructive combination. For them, fighting was a natural method of communication.    

They experimented with sex. They role played. They tried to use erotic devices, visual aids and scented candles but it all seemed too comical.They tried to set the scene. At other times, they watched cooking shows because physical intimacy seemed like too much to deal with. They caught sight of each other in the toothpaste flecked bathroom mirror or bending over naked to pick things up off the floor or sleeping with unflattering expressions on their faces and they thought, okay…is this it? Am I going to be with this person from here on in? Is this really it? 

  

They walked around their neighbourhood at night, an after dinner ritual, and had countless detailed conversations about movies, their work, their families, local characters, their relationship, political unrest, climate change, gender politics, art.... In the beginning, their relationship had seemed simply a matter of sex and companionship but as the months went past, and the more they got to know each other, the more they talked, the more they analysed and tried to pinpoint exactly what happiness was, the more impossible it became to figure out. And still, they kept on, trying to define their relationship, trying to put it into words. They came to the conclusion that all this meta-chatter about their relationship were destructive but by then it was too late. The lesson was simple: sometimes it pays to take things for granted. In other words, you might find your happiness has slipped away while you were busy measuring, quantifying and defining it.  

They posted photographs of our holidays online. They stood on the southernmost tip of Spain and saw the coastline of northern African across the water. Afterwards, they stumbled across a half empty amusement park. The rides and stalls were all open to the public. It was like wandering around you own personal fairground. One ride flung them high up into the air so that the ground, the night sky and lights blurred together in a continual figure of eight. The only evidence that survived this drunken evening was a series of flash-blown, wonky digital photographs on his phone.     

Their separate friends became mutual friends. They had dinner parties, crowding these people into their tiny living room alcove, around a small table. They shared the cooking and experimented with different recipes. She taught him how to season is food correctly, telling him that she’d grown up with bland food and as a result, she liked to taste what she was eating. 

They would later mutually acknowledge these meals constituted the golden age of their relationship and the sad thing was that, at the time, they were blind to it. People came and went and their life together felt rich and saturated with interesting social possibilities and enhanced by manageable recreational drug use which led them through the crawl spaces and backrooms of the city. 

They stayed in bed all weekend once, leaving only for Thai food that came in little plastic rectangular boxes that leaked coconut cream sauce all over the inside of the bag.  

They visited their respective parents on several occasions and overall, these visits weren't any good. That is to say, of the four divorced parents, the only interaction that was relaxed and without tension or incident was with her mother in Perth. Her father took an instant and lasting dislike to him which eventually become if not the source of one of their regular arguments, then at least the kindling which got the fight blazing.  

They became well acquainted with the others working lives. In a second-hand way, they understood the dynamics and pressures of the other's workplace. They tried to empathise with the other but really? How much of this shit were you really expected to listen to?  

They fucked on a beach, in a field, on the redwood deck of a ski chalet, in a tent, in a storm, partially underwater, at a yoga retreat and on a golf course in the middle of the night. They tried to make it on a plane but the much revered 'mile high club' alluded them. The bathroom stall was ridiculously small and all they ended up doing was getting tied up in unfulfilling knots and drawing the scorn of the harassed air hostess who did not appreciate their attempt at mid-air copulation. It you could please use the bathroom one at a time from now on….I’d appreciate it. Okay? she had quipped before marching back to the galley, her polyester uniform squeaking as her legs scissored along the isle.  

They argued so much the neighbours came knocking. 

They had a trial separation to see if they'd be happier away from each other. They went through different stages of fear based on the suffocating suspicion that they might be throwing away their last chance at staying together. At what might turn out to be the most important relationship of their lives. In the moment it was difficult to be objective. Then again, what did objectivity have to do with love?  

They got back together for six weeks but it felt forced and unsustainable like they were trying to give life to something that was already dead and didn't make sense anymore. And of course, this created a fresh tension that only compounded the existing ones. 

They decided that he should move out. That evening they both felt a great sense of relief. Fearful and terrified yes. But also exhilarated that they were free from one another. It felt like the night beyond their apartment windows was on the verge of crashing in and swamping out the comfort and predictability of their domestic life together. They felt relieved that they were about to move beyond the endless arguments and bickering. 

They had been together for a total of three years.  

They decided that, instead of risking another argument about everything they had mutually accumulated over that time, they would drag everything outside and have an ‘end of the relationship sale’. It seemed like a mature, equitable solution to the whole thing.  

They sold everything, the items slipping away in the steady stream of people who stopped by with their coffees and dogs as the day progressed. They made a $245 profit. They split the money and that evening felt the same shock of separation because their time together during the garage sale had felt so natural, so normal, so conducive to simply remaining together. Why couldn't it be like this all the time?  

They separated for good this time. He'd booked a cheap airline ticket to Japan, caught an Uber to the airport. As he walked down the skyway to board the waiting plane, he thought, Oh god what am I doing? Am I making a huge mistake here? He envisioned himself turning and walking back to his old life with her. Forget about Japan, his panic told him. He ignored his panic and kept moving forward. The flight was a dimly lit tunnel of mild anxiety. He distracted himself by watching two CGI-heavy fantasy movies. The three Jack Daniels and coke gave him a headache. Nine hours later he was touching down in Tokyo.

They separated for good. She came out to the kerb and saw him off which was strange because she's seen him off many times before, only this time he wouldn't be coming back. A voice is her head said, the optimistic one, said, don't worry, this isn' the end of us. But then another, more world-weary voice said, this is it babe. This is definitely the end.

She went to work on Monday morning. It amazed her, in a way, how little her life had changed subsequent to his departure. She pretty much did the same things she'd been doing for the past six months. Minus the arguing and worry. There were moments of course when the separation seemed to physically crush her with the nauseating sense that fate had taken a wrong turn, but overall, she accepted that their relationship had run its course.

He worked in a language school in Tokyo. He was given a small apartment, a studio just slightly bigger than a utility cupboard, in a middle-class area on the outskirts of the city. He appreciated the neon jewelled buildings gleaming and visible beyond the sliding glass door leading out to his balcony, and the quirky backstreets crammed with bars and convenience stores near the train station.

She moved into an interesting, slightly hermetic routine. She craved self-sufficiency. Yoga, work, socialising with co-workers once a week (alway being conscious that she should avoid excessive drunkenness in front of those coworkers). A trip to Melbourne to see an old friend. Everything neat and self-contained.

She found herself using the 'J' word quite a bit. As in 'Journey'. As in 'I'm on this new journey to find out who I am beyond that relationship with him'. Single girlfriends, those who'd found themselves involuntarily stranded on the lonesome shores of Sydney's 40+ single world, would nod sympathetically but would advise that sometimes the journey is simply a matter of getting back on the proverbial horse.

He often speculated: what if I'd been less judgemental? What if I'd held back a little bit and given her a break? Could I have kept things going? And what is she doing now?

She moved apartments. The mould in the cupboard was becoming an issue. She hadn't realised it but the mould was compromising her health. Respiratory and god knows what else. During the move, she found a few of his personal items tucked away in her things. Compounded by the upheaval of moving and the mould situation, these discoveries were unexpectedly confronting. In a way, moving out of her mouldy apartment was more emotionally taxing than breaking up with him.

 He began to acclimate to his new life, got used to his new working situation, drank beer with work colleagues, retained his excitement about living what felt like an exotic new life in an exotic country before familiarisation with a growing list of cultural annoyances began to creep in and compromise the novelty.

She enjoyed her single routine for as long as possible. She worked on herself. She went to a psychologist, a physiotherapist, a dentist and her gynaecologist. She consulted a naturopath. She went to yoga four times a week now. She became one of these efficiently muscled by yoga Sydney-siders. She became ripped in her active wear. The psychologist didn't impress her. He was a real downer. At certain points in their one-hour session, she wanted to ask him if was okay. He seemed so deflated, so weighed down. He didn't seem like the kind of person who was interested in other people's lives. This is what she wrote in the feedback questionnaire after the session. The rest of her medical consultations were more fruitful and once she'd finished with them, she felt like a new person. She thought she might have fallen briefly in love with her physiotherapist by she couldn't tell.

He hiked to a temple on top of a mountain one weekend. The bus let him off at the head of the trail with a few other hikers. He moved up the trail, taking his times, the other hikers visible on the turns and at the rest points, with their water bottles, cameras and day packs. Standing on the top of the mountain, his neck definitely getting sunburnt, it surprised him how his relationship with her now seemed so distant. Is this the moment? he wondered. The monk in the temple played a chant on an old Sony cassette tape. A voice in his head told him this all felt like a tourist racket. Another voice told him to chill out and take the experience for what it was.

He was sitting in a bar, leaning against this bar in actual fact, his ugly hands and his money and his drink laid out on the bar, everything beyond the shrinking field of his awareness seemingly muddled and confused by much alcohol consumption. It was day outside but then it was night. Like flicking a switch. It seemed like he had been in this bar for years although that wasn't possible. One thing was for certain, he was talking to some guy he'd formed some kind of toxic connection with. Another Gaijin dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and who had a black eye.

She saw a ghost. She had never believed in anything supernatural in her life and she was more than willing to pass this 'ghost' sighting off as a dream but the problem was she'd been awake during the whole thing. This 'ghost' had been standing at the foot of her bed, looking down at her. A man. A naked man. So real she'd yelped out in fear and had nearly fallen out of the bed in her scramble for the bedside lamp. But then, she hit the switch and the white walls and the ceiling of her room leapt out of the darkness, and the room revealed itself to be nothing more that a familiar, empty box with black windows.

She went on a series of disastrous online dates. Just when she thought it couldn't get worse, a new weirdo with a fresh set of quirks and neurosis would turn up. She'd set the clock running from the moment she met these men in the cafe or the Thai restaurant. To see how long they'd last before their inner weirdness came to light. She started suggesting movies because at least then she could have two hours of company before the online shapeshifter could disappoint her. This was the third and final period of regret that her relationship with him was finally over.  

She met a man who would eventually become her partner. A divorced cafe owner who had a son from his previous marriage. She would eventually end up giving him another son. She liked the cafe entrepreneur because he was self-assured and confident. He didn't seem to care about what other people thought. He was eight years her senior. He was bald but with an Ed Harris virility.

He met another woman. An industrial designer. He met this young Japanese woman in a car rental office. The car rental people had messed up their booking. The company only had one vehicle left in the lot and it was snowing outside. Since he had a reservation to stay at a ski resort a short distance away from where she was staying, they shared the car. The hour-long journey into the mountains flew past. They talked the entire time, the heater pushing hot air through the vents in the dashboard and onto their laps. The black roads they drove along were ploughed and salted in an orderly way, which for him, provided a nice contrast to the powdered hinterlands and later on, the piled up mountain vistas as they climbed to higher altitudes.  

She made concessions. The cafe owners son, she felt, was inflicted with an over-endowed sense of confidence. As a result, he inflicted his precocious 10-year-old, over confident self on those around him. Maybe it was from being an only child. He was a monster.

He dated and married the Industrial designer and eventually they moved back to Sydney. He and his new wife would spend the next decade travelling back and forth, between Sydney and Osaka.

She moved to Byron Bay with the cafe entrepreneur and his monstrous son. Why not? A better life in the true subtropics beckoned. She loved her morning out on the deck, the house cut off from the outside world by thick, lush foliage. The beach a ten-minute walk away.

He had conversations with her in his head. Only when he was stressed from work. This would happen involuntarily. He would speak his point of view and her voice would break in, provide a counter-argument. In this way, he tempered some of his knee-jerk reactions to a number of testing professional and personal situations.

She came across him on Facebook, smiling with his new wife, standing on Bondi Beach. It shocked her. Was this where he was living now? He hadn't updated his Facebook account. She contacted him and the next time she was down from Byron, they caught up for a coffee.

She was sitting in the cafe facing the beach. He appeared out of the crowd and sat down. And just like that, almost without missing a beat, they picked up where they'd left off.