Jochem

This is my entry for Anna's Contest. I know it is a little longer than it's supposed to be, but conciseness has never been my forte and my creative writing cannot be repressed! :P I hope you like it, sweet friend.

Anna once told me: “You want to be perceived as a bitter cynic, but you are just pretending to be one. At heart, you are an eternal optimist and romantic.”

It happened on Tuesday, September 5, 2006. I got up at the crack of dawn to pull a 15-hour shift for my job in hospitality, and my ex-boyfriend would be my boss for the day. I did what any ex-girlfriend would do when she has to spend a whole day with the man who broke her heart: I looked fabulous. I went for that cosmopolitan, New York look where I wore a big scarf instead of a coat and was carrying my large UCLA coffee tumbler because I wanted to look like one of those cool people who just can’t function without coffee, like Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City and the two Lorelais in Gilmore Girls.

When we arrived on location in Amersfoort I was told by said-ex-boyfriend that I would spend the 15 hours behind the last bar with “some guy from Nijmegen”. He pointed me in his direction, towards the guy who had missed the instruction meeting because he was smoking outside with a buddy. Great.

I walked up to him, offered him my hand and said: “Are you Jochem? I am Nuria. We will be working together today behind the last bar.” He looked at me with a bemused look on his face before taking my hand and saying: “Yes, I am Jochem. I’ll show you the way.”

This man was quite a talker. He wouldn’t stop flirting with me. He did it in that annoying, confident way. He talked to me like every man who knows they can get any woman to sleep with him, talks to you. When he came back carrying supplies for the bar he looked flushed, so I asked: “Are you okay? You look flushed.” And he replied: “I’m only hot because of you.” I looked at him the way every woman who knows that they are unattainable looks at the man who just had the courage to use a lame pick-up line on her; much the same way in which my elitist literary professors look at me when I dare to suggest that Ronald Barthes was a lunatic for suggesting that the author is dead and that Jacques Derrida was his bitch: “You poor little thing, you just really don’t understand how it works, do you?” I finally looked at him and said: “You think you’re a real smooth talker, don’t you?” That shut him up for at least 5 minutes.

This went on for 15 hours and at the end of the day I was no longer worried about the ex-boyfriend because I was too preoccupied with the gorgeous, funny, albeit slightly clueless, guy from Nijmegen. Imagine my surprise when he didn’t ask for my phone number after having invited me over! Going against all things feminist, I decided to give it to him anyway.

To say that my first impression of him was not good, would be an understatement. To say that I never thought I’d be here, would be cutting it short. But somehow, almost 2 years and 3 months later, after countless dinners, drinks, movies and parties; numerous good times, several bad times, a couple of very bad times, one Friday the 13th drama, and a few broken cups; about a dozen heavenly trips to faraway places later; after red roses and chocolate cookies, butterfly kisses and more joyful R-rated information, I find myself living with this same man in a beautiful apartment in the city I love, with two goldfish in our study and a kitten on the way, with small and big plans lined up for our future, actually happy, and I can’t help but wonder: How did we get here? Because we made it happen. And even though I know we are like black and white and although we by no definition represent a perfect couple, I know that we are perfect for each other.

I would like to end with a quotation from the movie A Beautiful Mind. At the end of this film the protagonist, John Nash, uses his Nobel Prize Acceptance Address as an opportunity to thank his wife, Alicia. While I was looking for the original speech, however, I discovered that there never was a Nobel Prize Acceptance Address by John Nash. But as Anna knows, I believe these ‘details’ are best forgotten over time. So I present the quotation anyway:

I have always believed in numbers. In the equations and logics that
lead to reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuits, I ask: "What truly is
logic?" "Who decides reason?" My quest has taken me through the physical, the
metaphysical, the delusional. And back. And I have made the most important
discovery of my career. The most important discovery of my life. It is only in
the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found. I am
only here tonight because of you. You are the reason I am. You are all
my reasons. Thank you.