And all I could think of was "don't you like your child?"

Your kid isn't a sophisticated media consumer who wants a three-act structure, b-plot, and Chekhov's gun. She just wants to spend time with her dad. She wants to see that he has noticed what she's interested in. She wants to know he cares.

This is the classic mistake made by tech-bros. The outcome might be the same, but not the intent.

Imagine that you were having a crappy day at work. You rant about it to your spouse and, when you get home, you discover they've cooked your favourite meal. Aren't they sweet! What a joy to have them in your life!

"My Agent automatically analyses all our chats. When it noticed your happiness score had dropped, it asked your agent what your favourite food was and then it used my pre-authorised credit card to order it."

Oh.

Having your mum's birthday noted in your calendar is probably sensible. Having an app to quickly buy flowers is convenient. Having an automated process which searches for the best deal on a bunch of roses in the week preceding her birthday - well that starts to feel like you're abdicating your filial duties. Having the agent scan her Facebook photos to make sure the bouquet matches her interior decor begins to feel creepy.

I'm sure agents will be good for lots of things. I'm happy to have a little robot buy books from my wishlist when they drop in price. I daresay I'll get used to my phone cheerfully telling me it noticed the trains are delayed and has booked a table at a local restaurant. Maybe an Agentic tutor will teach me a new language in a way that doesn't frustrate me.

But you can't outsource love.

It is often joked that the point of golf is to play as little golf as possible. Our relationships with each other aren't a series of transactions to be completed as efficiently as possible. We want to be reassured that our loved ones put effort into maintaining a relationship.

We both wailed and made overly dramatic speeches about how we'd stay true to each other. And we'd write every day! And nothing would tear us apart!

Those eleven weeks sssuuuuuccccckkkkkeeeeddddd! Skype hadn't been invented, and long distance calls were prohibitively expensive to us students. Timezones made IM chatting difficult. Emails and the odd letter made things just about bearable. But there was a profound sense that we needed to be in each other's arms. When she eventually came back - we vowed never to be apart for so long again.

Today is Liz's birthday. And, by happy coincidence, we've been locked up together for eleven weeks and one day. We've slain the dragon! I don't think we've ever spent so much time permanently in each other's company.

There's no one I'd rather be confined with. She's a sparkling wit, tough under pressure, a fierce defender of her opinions, and really good at video games.

Sure, we've bickered a bit in lockdown - who hasn't? - but she always knows the way to my heart.

Her taste in alcohol has improved remarkably since those early days

See! Classy!

She's a glamorous adventurer:

She's obsessed with Zelda:

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

Amazing time at @WarwickCastle today. Special thanks to @merchoid for @summerbeth's Legend of Zelda hoodie. pic.x.com/Kj7BNi0DZW

---

And, best of all, she was daft enough to marry me!

Happy birthday, my love!

Subject: Come One! Come All!

Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 13:27:51 -0000

Yes, this Sunday our charming colonial cousins will be playing the American Football Superbowl!!!!!!!

If you're anything like me you can contain your excitement at the thought of watching a bunch of Yanks try to play rugby while dressed up like nancy boys... but come anyway - there's gonna be beer and nachos... LOTS of beer... MANY nachos...

So, yeah, Sunday 28 Jan our place some time in the evening. Come or we'll cross you off our Christmas Card list. Ooooh - aren't you scared?

Terry & Stoive

RSVP!

To explain... I was at university and sharing a house with my mate, Stoive. I can't say that either of us really liked American Football, but it seemed like a good excuse for a party. We invited everyone we knew. Specifically - single girls. More specifically, one single girl.

As it turned out, we never got to see SuperBowl XXXV. It was shown only on Pay-per-view. Our cable provider (NTL, I think) had a delightfully British attitude to making money. We rang them on the Sunday morning, only to be told "Sorry, you can't order pay-per-view at the weekends. The staff only work week-days." I'm told that customer service hasn't much improved in the land of cable.

So our "Superbowl" party became just another student party. The beer quickly ran out only to be replaced by honey vodka and Goldschläger. With the TV off, we were forced - horror of horror - into conversations.

I don't really know how I wrangled it, but I ended up sat next to the girl I had invited. She was talking, I was talking. But we weren't talking to each other. I was trying to work up the courage to talk to her. Stoive was cautioning me against eating too much spicy salsa; "Not if you want to get lucky tonight, mate!"

There was a brief lull in the conversations. I turned to her, about to say something which in my head sounded urbane when...

She kissed me.

She. Kissed. Me.

She kissed me.

She kissed me.

Nope. No matter how many permutations I try, I still don't understand it. I know it happened - I'm still slightly at a loss to explain it.

One thing I do know is that, seven years later, she kissed me again. And we've still never watched a Super Bowl.

Also, The Sun and The Mirror ran little pieces.

First to offer us untold riches for our tale were Full House Magazine.

Click the picture to read the article.

A few weeks ago, we sold out story to Now Magazine for their Celebrity Wedding issue.

Click the picture to read the article.

It's quite interesting to read the difference between the two articles. Liz gave basically the same interview to both. Full House seem to think that UEA is a college and that we both have an IQ of 17. Now Magazine was much more receptive to the concept of our wedding - feminism, Oxfam, fun - and I think the article is better for it.

Even now, 7 months after the wedding, I still get emails from people who've spotted our story on various newspapers and forums. Our story was picked up in Romania!