Getting To Know Stephen

Christmas Eve 2020 was the busiest day of my working year. Normally, it would have been impossible to give anything else much attention, with important tasks to complete and an impossible long list of things that needed doing before Christmas could properly begin. 

But somehow, Stephen and I managed to keep talking all day.

Messages flew back and forth between us whenever I had a spare moment. Each one seemed to open another door into the other’s life, and beneath the practicalities of my busy day, we were quietly assessing the chemistry between us.

There was definitely a spark.

Our communication seemed to work effortlessly. We shared a similar sense of humour and enjoyed playing with ideas, and the more we talked, the more common ground we discovered. We were beginning to recognise similarities in our pasts, but perhaps more excitingly, we were discovering that some of our hopes for the future weren’t so different either.

It was during those conversations that I learned my first surprising fact about Stephen.

He wasn’t actually a property developer.

He confessed that he had listed it on his dating profile because, although property development was something he aspired to, it sounded considerably better than putting ‘unemployed’ on his profile.

It was, technically, a lie.

It raised an eyebrow.

But I also appreciated that he had told me himself, rather than allowing me to continue believing something that wasn’t true. He was remarkably open about other aspects of his life, and I could understand the embarrassment behind wanting to present yourself in a better light when entering the dating world. I decided not to make too much of it.

There were more important things I was discovering about him.

Stephen spoke warmly about his previous girlfriend, describing her as a lovely and kind woman but explaining that, despite those qualities, he couldn’t see a future with her.

I remember finding that refreshing.

There was something reassuring about hearing a man speak kindly about an ex-partner rather than dismissing her or turning her into the villain of his story. It suggested a degree of maturity and compassion that I found attractive.

Then Stephen told me something else.

He had EUPD — Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder.

He suggested that it had developed as a consequence of something traumatic during his childhood, although he didn’t tell me what had happened. I didn’t push him. We’d only known each other for a day, and there were some things that I felt belonged to a later conversation, if and when we got to know each other properly.

I listened carefully, though.

I was aware enough to understand that entering a relationship with someone who had a significant mental health diagnosis could bring its own complexities. I wondered what it might mean for him, and potentially for me, if our relationship developed.

But at that point, what stood out more strongly than the diagnosis was his apparent openness about it.

He seemed self-aware. He wasn’t hiding it or pretending that everything in his life had always been straightforward. There was something quite compelling about that honesty.

I suspected that whatever had happened in his childhood had been serious, possibly involving abuse, but I didn’t need to know everything immediately.

There was plenty about Stephen that I found fascinating already.

My curiosity about him was stronger than my reservations.

We talked about the sort of lives we imagined having one day. Stephen dreamed of owning some woodland and creating a self-sufficient life for himself. I had rather more modest ambitions.

I simply wanted a lovely home to come back to after a day’s work.

Somewhere I could feel safe. Somewhere I could feel secure. Somewhere I could build a happy life.

When we talked about it, neither dream seemed incompatible with the other.

In fact, they seemed as though they might fit surprisingly well.

It was far too soon to be imagining a future with a man I’d met on a dating app only the day before, and I was perfectly aware of that.

But it was difficult not to entertain the possibility.

Something exciting and, perhaps, surprisingly realistic seemed to be taking shape.

That evening, I think we had our first telephone conversation.

Until then, Stephen had existed as words on a screen and a handful of photographs. Suddenly, there was a voice attached to him.

I loved it instantly.

It was quite low and textured, with a slightly silky quality that I found incredibly attractive. There was something almost contradictory about the way he spoke — occasionally quite polished and almost posh, then suddenly dropping into much more ordinary, familiar pronunciations.

And when I made him laugh, he would giggle.

Not a restrained, self-conscious laugh, but something much more childlike and spontaneous.

I found it adorable.

Hearing his voice made the attraction I’d already felt through our messages grow stronger. There was something about Stephen that seemed to combine confidence with an almost boyish naivety, and I found the combination irresistible.

It was Christmas Eve.

The timing somehow made everything feel even more exciting. There was something wonderfully surreal about being on the threshold of Christmas, surrounded by all the usual preparations, while at the same time beginning something completely unexpected with a man I’d only just met.

I was already pretty hooked.

I wanted to know more about him. I wanted to hear his voice again. I wanted to see where this extraordinary conversation might lead.

But I also knew that the next couple of days would probably put everything temporarily on hold.

Christmas was here.

For the moment, I had to put my phone down, finish my work and get on with the festivities.

I had no idea then that the conversation I’d started just a few days earlier would become the beginning of a relationship that would change my life.

For now, it was simply Christmas Eve, and I was excited about a man I had only just met.