Have you ever been to Graceland?

Six years ago today I was sat in my childhood bedroom. The carpet was still an acrylic mixture of browns and buffs designed not to show the dirt (or the backs of earrings). The bedroom door still didn't close properly. If you wanted to sleep with the window open you had to wedge the door either side with jeans and a t-shirt to stop it banging in the wind. In the cupboard over the stairs 'I love John Taylor IDST' still showed through two coats of white paint.

Dad was downstairs, watching television. 'Are you being framed' (sic) probably, or 'Watchdog'.

I was sifting through the responses to my internet dating profile, thinking it would be nice to go on a date. A night out would be fun. I'd spent too many quiet nights in. Dad wasn't well enough for me to look for somewhere else to live, but neither was he that poorly that I had to stay in with him every night. I especially didn't need to be in when Phil and Ken came round and the three of them talked at each other for a few hours while they drank gin and tonics and ate Fruit and Nut.

I logged into the 'chat' section of the dating website for the first time. New chat windows were opening up faster than I could look at them. Paul said 'Hello', Dave said 'Hi', Chris said 'Hi', Rob said 'hi' (how hard is it to find the shift key?), then Andy asked 'Have you ever been to Graceland?'.

I didn't even look at his photograph or profile at that stage. We just started chatting about freaky waxworks in Country and Western museums. I closed all of the other windows down. Andy was intelligent, funny and on my wavelength. We exchanged email addresses.

Reader, I married him.



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