This is a public account of how we met, to give everyone an idea of why we ended up in a bullshit long-distance relationship through a global pandemic when borders became a real problem.
This is my account of how I met the most amazing girl so it might be a little bias but I fully accept this, it’s just a little wander down memory lane while we are apart so we can look back on something when we are old and can’t remember the details anymore.
The story starts for me in on a night in England. I had finished my first year of university early due to a lack of exams in the summer term and was working in a ice-cream shop over the summer. This is when my friend, Charles Gale, enters the picture. He was on a gap year and looking to go travelling for a bit, he asked me if I was free and the answer was easy. We looked at going to Indonesia and a whole host of other places but we were both broke and Bangkok, Thailand was the cheapest flight to SEA. I still don’t know why we were adamant of Asia (edit: I do remember now but that’s a whole other story). We booked flights that night and I had to tell my new job that I wouldn’t be around for the two busiest months of the summer that I was originally hired for. They weren’t happy, but zero-hours contracts offer no stability for employees and therefore I didn’t feel too bad exploiting the lack of stability it offered my employer in this specific scenario.
So, two kids arrive in Bangkok not knowing what to do or where to go. We stayed for a couple of days before looking up where had good surf and beaches. Both us were below average surfers but it sounded like a good idea and the trip to Phuket was booked. This is where the story changes for me from the original idea I had of a fun summer in Asia with all the traditional Brit abroad stereotypes to the most important trip of my life so far. It all started because I’d just started watching basketball and a guy came in to the hostel we just arrived at in a Russell Westbrook USA jersey and we started chatting about nothing. This is when I saw her for the first time she came in wearing a grey tank top (this is disputed but I’m sure I remember). She sat on the floor and we had a brief conversation, I found out her name, Holly.
From there the next time I would see her would be Holly arriving back at the hostel from a motorbike trip to the airport to pick up her friend, Phoebe. She pulled up, jump off and floated away. While all of this was happening I was doing what all people from the little island almost touching Europe do, getting burned by the excitement of seeing the sun for the first time. There was a “hostel party” that night and all that really means was cheap alcohol and everyone sitting outside on benches talking, with indiscriminate pop music playing in the background. Despacito was still the biggest song in Thailand and had been for a few years I believe. Holly remembers me talking to some American girl for some of the night, i do not. The aforementioned Gale, and basketball jersey wearing guy, Jeff, started talking about Brexit. It was a hot topic at the time, it still is as I’m writing this 3 years later but back then it was hot off the presses. A side note about Gale, he appears very knowledge when talking about global politics and economics, whether he is or not is a different story but he was telling the whole thing. At this point I was sitting next to Holly and she asked me to give a one minute breakdown of what the hell Gale was talking about. I did and we didn’t stop talking for the rest of the night and the next morning. Also, “we” is a strong word I think I did most of the talking and the evening progressed from outside the hostel to two hundred metres away to another bar/tattoo parlour (?) , to 7Eleven and back to the hostel stairs. Gale went to get ice-cream with a personified shriek during this time. if you know you know. So there we are sitting on the hostel steps talking about everything and nothing and to quote David Orobosa Omoregie “And all my friends are drunk so fuck it, I’m about to kiss her. Any complications, I’m blaming it on the liquor.” . This was not the moment though and as the sun was rising we headed to the beach to watch it rise. Holly stripped to her bikini bottoms and bra and jumped into the sea. I did the same and we were in the ocean as the sun rose, I thought maybe this was the moment but instead we got the every quoted line between the two of us “Why are you so close to my face?” To this day she denies she had any idea I was trying to kiss her. It would have been the perfect Hollywood moment but i prefer the grungy way it played out anyway.
The next day we were supposed to meet up to go to the Big Buddha but if you know me then you know that my skills do not extend to waking up in the morning. Holly and her friends, Phoebe, Bich and Jeff went in the morning and Gale and I went when I woke up. It was cool but the motorbike trip up and down was more fun than the statue itself.
Also I didn’t get Holly’s number, but thankfully Gale got someone’s number and we were invited to the south part of the island to go out with one of Bich’s friends from the Netherlands. Holly would also be going. So I’ll skip to the end of the day and the little group of us meeting up to get a taxi to wherever we were going. As it turns out nobody knew as we got lost a few times on the way there. Holly spoke to Gale for most of the car ride and I thought that was it. Turns out she did like me but behind the Warrior Princess she can seem when she is in her element, of which Thailand definitely is, is the sweetest and little bit bashful girl you could ever have the pleasure of knowing. This is to say she was nervous, so was I. Luckily despite this nervousness we did end up talking when we finally got to the strip of bars. We started hypothesizing about a bell in this bar, a bell you could ring to buy the band shots. Another inconsequential conversation that I will always cherish not because of its content but what it led too. Conclusion, it was coloured water and it was an excellent way to get tips and boost the ego of the tipper. We moved on from this bar to a club and this is where it happened in a strange club known at the time as the White Room and I’ll admit that I did kiss her first. Forewarning the following picture is the only I have from that night and it is one of the club photographer ones, it did say it was grungy earlier but who cares it’s our fairy tale, the picture was before we had kissed and I look very young (I guess i always have but looking at it is still hard, it funny to look at someone who thinks they are much cooler than they are but when that person is you uhg! Holly is also quite drunk as I’m sure you’ll see in the picture.) Other things happened that night but they are not relevant to this story. Shoes, Jealousy, Little Snacks, Drunkenness and a little bit of Cuddling.
So that was the start and was almost the end, we all went out for breakfast to the place next to the hostel the next day. It turned out that Holly and her friends were leaving the next day.
