‘HOW we met’ remains a popular feature in the Guardian’s Lifestyle section, but some of the real-life stories were deemed too disturbing for readers. Here is a sample.
‘He’d got a really good wok set’
‘Elaine’ told the Guardian: I’d always dreamed of owning a wok set, so when Gerald told me he’d got one with three spatulas and a bamboo vegetable steamer I sucked him off immediately. I suppose I could just buy a decent wok for 25 quid and not be forced to have sex with someone I actively dislike, but it seems like a lot of hassle.
‘My balls were about to rupture’
‘Graham’ said: I was having a serious sexual drought, over a decade, and I desperately needed a shag with anyone or anything. Let’s just say the exhaust pipe on my Honda Jazz was starting to look incredibly sexy. That’s when I met Clare, who I find by turns annoying, boring and unattractive. We’ve been together 11 years now. Oh how I regret not just visiting a prostitute.
‘She threatened to leave me to die’
‘Josh’ said: I was backpacking in Phuket in 1992 when I fell into an isolated ravine, breaking both my legs. By some miracle I saw Susan’s face peering over the edge and she said: ‘You’re not bad-looking, promise to marry me or I’ll leave you to die from dehydration and the jungle rats will eat your corpse.’ A promise is a promise and now we’ve got three grandchildren.
‘He mistook me for a woman but I decided to roll with it’
‘Stuart’ said: I got talking to Roger at a gig when I used to have long hair, and it became clear he thought I was a woman. He’s not very observant because I’m six foot four with massive hands. Anyway, long story short, I hadn’t been having much luck with the ladies recently so I thought why not just go along with it? The sex is pretty unpleasant and it’s hard explaining why I haven’t got a vagina, but it’s someone to go to B&Q with.
‘I am just so gullible and I thought he was James Bond’
‘Natasha’ said: I got talking to this guy in Spoons and I asked his name and he said, ‘The name’s Bond, James Bond.’ And I thought, wow, he’s the actual 007 so I had sex with him by the bins. It wasn’t until Skyfall that I realised James Bond was made up, because I recognised Javier Bardem from Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge. Obviously we split up, but I should have seen the warning signs, like his car not having an ejector seat.
‘We’re both incredibly racist’
‘Luciana’ said: Black people, Asians, Jews – I hate them all, and so does Simon. We met while I was shouting racial abuse at Eastern Europeans on a bus and we clicked instantly. We keep the romantic spark alive by finding new genetic subgroups to despise, so this year we’re going on holiday to Mongolia to have a good laugh at those twats.
‘I saw him in a dream but it might have been Norman Cook’
‘Cassie’ said: I’m a strong believer in the dream realm, so when I met Alan inside a massive brass snake I knew he was the one. Admittedly he kept turning into different people and one of them was the DJ Norman Cook, but when I saw him outside the chemist’s just four years later I recognised him instantly. We were clearly fated to be together because we’ve got so much in common, apart from dogging, taxidermy and rock-climbing.