But I think I will. I'm delightfully sentimental about the idea of Nigel getting married at last. He deserves the girl of his dreams, and I'm thrilled for him. There was a time when I hoped it might be me. For a brief week or so (years and years ago) we toyed with the idea of getting married, but we came to our senses. We've remained good friends. Still, a girl never forgets the men who propose to her. Those fellows will always be enshrined in my memory as classic examples of how easily young men are led astray by the thrill of having sex.

No, no, I mean I remember all of the chaps who proposed to me very fondly indeed. There was the trumpeter I met while still at university who had a lousy job doing something dull and non-musical, which I found kind of disturbing. We went out once or twice, had bad sex once, and went to a boring rock concert by some band I hated. Three weeks later he asked me to marry him, and I said no. I never saw him again. I'm sorry to say I don't actually remember his name, but I remember deciding I'd start being more discriminating about who I went to concerts with.

There was Simon, my first real boyfriend. I met him right after I moved to San Francisco in the early 80's. He taught me about oral sex, and the less exotic variations of intercourse. He was a good looking man, a sweet, thoughtful person, a painter instead of a musician, but equally impecunious. He worked in a coffee shop.

We went out for several months, and were very happy together, but then I went to a convention on the east coast and forgot to come home. He wrote me long letters full of daydreams about us getting married and having children. I wrote back and said I was planning to go on to England instead of returning to California, and also not only did I not want children I didn't actually wish to marry him. He took it kind of hard. He painted me as Godzilla trashing San Francisco. It was good, actually. Our mutual friend Rich Coad bought the painting and hung it in his living room where I can still see the result of my first real break up.

There were others, but I'll spare you the recitation (and their feelings). I think my point is that although I enjoyed having boyfriends, and was inevitably attracted to artists (I fell in love with Nigel because of his writing), I never got serious about marrying any of them. I didn't have a particular ideal for a partner, I just knew these guys weren't The One. In the back of my mind I was immensely practical. I didn't intend to marry anyone who didn't have a good job, although I would have denied it to the rooftops if you'd told me that played any part in my decision making process. And some of them did have okay jobs, but no one was doing the thing that they loved most. They were all just getting by. That's what I was doing myself, and I didn't find it particularly admirable. I certainly didn't want to marry someone just like me.

Then I met John. I thought it was cool that he was a physicist. Science and math are mysteries to me. I can understand the artistic mind, but someone who does calculations in his head, and remembers the Periodic Table of Elements is alien to me. And here was this cute, nice guy who knew from a young age that he wanted to be a scientist, and went out and got his doctorate in physics as though it weren't a difficult thing to do in the first place, let alone sticking with a goal over ten years of higher education. That impressed me hugely. He was funny, too, and we had all kinds of things in common, and coincidentally he had a very good job, one he loved. I thought this John guy, while not as flashy as some of my other boyfriends, just might be The One.

But he didn't propose to me.

This is perfectly true. He and I went out for three years, and then moved in together for another two. We were getting to that odd, sticky point of a relationship where I felt that we should either formalize it or break up. I wasn't particularly keen on getting married for most of my life up to that point (age 31), but I didn't want to be in some kind of endless relationship loop, either. It was about this time that John received a job offer from Vanderbilt University and began planning his move to Nashville. I waited for a day or two to see if he proposed. He didn't. He talked about getting all our stuff moved, so he obviously expected me to go with him.

"I'm not moving to Nashville for a boyfriend," I said drily.

"Oh," he replied, baffled. "I thought we'd get married or something."

"Gosh, how romantic. When did you plan on telling me about it?" I said, laughing in spite of myself.

"Um, I thought you knew," John said hopefully.

My only psychic proposal. Yet this was the one I married. It was the right decision. It's been all that I hoped for when I was a girl, and all that I planned for as an adult. I love being with John. I'm not in the least sorry I didn't marry any of the others.

But when Nigel gets married I'll still feel a little funny about it, just a tiny bit verklempt, and I don't think that's wrong. Because it's as much about nostalgia for the 80's and my life then as it is about an ex boyfriend getting married. Because once, a long time ago when we were young and the world was full of possibilities, I hoped it might be me.

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