First Love

My first love was a surfer, with shoulders from here to here, a waist of just 26 inches, pecs to die for, and one of the most beautiful faces I've ever seen. Insecure, uncomfortable with men, gangly, geeky and plain, I fell head over heels for him when he showed some interest and kindness to me.

A local supermarket chain, Coles, has been using a 'celebrity chef', Curtis Stone, (whom I'd never heard of, but then I never watch television) to sell cheap but tasty meals. When I saw his pic up on a 2 metre high poster at the supermarket, my first thought was, holy fuck, it's _______. Only of course, it couldn't be. He and I were together over 35 years ago. And even though he's left scars on my heart and soul, he will also have got old like me, with grey in his hair and skin which has lost its elasticity. He will also find it harder to get up each morning and paradoxically harder also to sleep properly. But Curtis Stone looks so much like him that for a moment there I was once again 22 and deeply, passionately, hopelessly in love.

On closer inspection, he doesn't look exactly like my guy. But it's really, really close. My guy's hair was curly, but pretty much this colour, and he was tanned a golden brown because he was a surfer.

You never forget your first love, and I have to say mine left a shadow over my life for many, many years after we parted. I'm glad now that I have my lady. She's a much better person than he was. He would never have been a real partner, like she is. But _____ is still the first person I loved deeply.

And so, despite all the water under the bridge, it was disconcerting in the extreme to see 'my guy' large as life at the supermarket.

[Just for the record, I'm sure Curtis Stone is as screaming a hetero as you could hope to find anywhere.  Just because he appears in this blog, and looks like my guy, does not mean that I think he's gay or even 'happy']