When you met your spouse: Stories of how married couples met

It was the French writer and statesman Victor Hugo who wrote how it feels to be entering upon old age. Feeling that your time is almost up. But then finding a new sense of relevance.

I am 66 and she is 24. That is a 42 year age difference. Ok? Or not ok?

She is Asian from the Philippines, and I will say very beautiful, though she disputes that. I am English in origin, residing near Melbourne, Australia, still in employment though my society would happily pension me off and no doubt consign me to a rest home.

She says I am handsome, though I have reservations about that.

We met for the first time. Yes, but I will show you what I mean. On Yahoo Messenger.

Holy smoke! Where would I be today without yahoo messneger online chat?

I was not looking for her. I had a conversation with an old friend, who suddenly vacated her chair to catch a bus. In the Philippine city of Tacloban on the island of Laete. On Yahoo Messenger that day. All my friend had to do before walking off, was to close her computer screen in the internet cafe. By sheer accident, she failed to do this, and a message appeared asking, “who are you?”.

Prompted by her question and a touch curious, I explained that I had a conversation “interruptus” situation.

That is how we first met. It was brief. She explained that she was in the process of contacting a guy she had met.

Why it developed from that shaky and unwanted start, I am not entirely sure. But when I got an image of her face, maybe from her Yahoo profile, something inside me decided hen and there that this was a lovely face.

So we met for the second time when I saw an image of her face.

Maybe the third time was when we spoke on the telephone and began exchanging text messages.

The fourth time we met was at 1.30 on the afternoon of 8 January 2007, when I arrived from Manila, and saw her standing waiting at the door of the small provincial airport, and I saw this delightful radiant young woman. Perhaps at that moment more than any other I felt that my advanced age rendered me incompatible.

The fifth time we met was at the resort on the island of Samar, around sundown, when Ai broke her ground rule of no sex for the first two days together. She said, “Do you want to make love?”

The sixth time we met was on a time and date unspecified, when our intense sexual activity caused her to conceive a child, now due in October.

the seventh time we will meet is on 3 April, when I am to meet her again, presently 10 weeks pregnant, in Manila, before flying next day down to Tacloban.

A daily diary of our meeting and our relationship is posted at jamesandaileen.blogspot.com

I shall add chapters to this story and welcome comments and questions.

I am not yet aware if I can post pictures here.