In the early 2000s I was living in an old apartment block in the Sydney suburb of Brighton-Le-Sands. One afternoon my flatmate and I rearranged our lounge room and thought nothing of flicking off a switch behind the couch.
As it turned out, that flick of a switch cut access to the shared TV antenna for the whole complex for a few annoying hours. But it also brought a tradie to my door – and changed my life.
Terry wasn’t someone I’d look twice at usually. He was scruffy, with this big mop of hair. If I’d seen him on one of the dating sites I was using at the time I never would have considered him.
But as he worked away we got chatting about our shared interest in travel and I made him a cup of tea. As he left he asked for my number. I thought “what the hell”, gave it to him and expected that to be the end of that. Guys never call, right?
But three days later Terry reappeared at my door. The little notepad he used for work – that he’d written my number down in – had gone through the wash. Along with my number, he’d lost contacts for thousands of dollars worth of work, yet here he was on my doorstep wanting to grab a coffee. I thought: “This guy has his priorities in order.”
That was definitely the moment I knew he was someone different. But in the following weeks he continued to surprise me with his unique approach to romance.
As we sipped coffee one day Terry invited me on an unusual date: whitewater rafting. That in itself was weird enough for me, but on the day things got even more peculiar. What he had conveniently forgotten to mention was that far from being a romantic date, he had actually brought me to his family’s Christmas do.
Lucky for him (and me) I’m a pretty easygoing person and I took it all in my stride. On the way home I asked him what he was thinking and if he knew how potentially unsettling such a thing might be to a woman. He replied: “Well, if I thought you were that kind of person, I wouldn’t have brought you, would I?”
After years of online dating I was pretty jaded, and here was this bloke who was just so unpretentious and relaxed about it all. This whole bizarre rafting-family-Christmas party told me this guy was not just one of a kind, but that he had me sussed too.
By 2007 we’d settled into a happy life as a couple, but around that time Terry’s go-get-’em nature found a new focus. He got really into climate action. I was very supportive in the beginning – and it’s still an issue I care about – but as his obsession grew and he joined more groups and campaigns, the time and energy he had for the relationship really suffered. A promise he’d made years earlier to curb his workaholic tendencies was thrown by the wayside and his hectic activism schedule meant we began to seriously drift apart.
When we finally broke up there was nothing nasty. One day we were sitting on the couch and realised we’d reached the end of the road. All he wanted to take was the bread maker. He set off to South Australia for a while with some climate campaign and by the time he resurfaced we slipped easily into the platonic friendship we enjoy to this day.
That was over 10 years ago. I have a new partner now, but Terry remains a solid friend. He’s been known to crash on our couch, we’ve attended weddings together, and my bond with his big, warm Celtic clan remains strong.
Terry is the hardest-working bloke I know. He never fails to make me laugh and he taught me so much about grabbing life by the proverbials.
Even though it wasn’t a forever thing, I often think how sad it is that I would have swiped past him on a dating site. And about how many great matches are missed when people become nothing more than a photo and a list of credentials.
My mother always told me love wouldn’t just turn up at my door. But in this case it did.
Sue Attar is the author of Mr Paper Plates (And Other Dubious Dates)
Do you have a romantic realisation you would like to share? Email australia.lifestyle@theguardian.com with “The moment I knew” in the subject line to be considered for future columns
