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If you want to see two people at their absolute best, says A'Court, ask them how they met.
A'Court, 56, is in the kitchen with the spotted ceramic chook on the windowsill and she's making coffee. She throws sugar in the plunger. "Do you take sugar?" No. "Oh," she pauses. She and Jeremy Elwood both take sugar.
Read MoreShe was the first to buy a ticket. “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking,” says Jenny Flain. “Desperado!” And with that the 35-year-old with the blonde mane and glorious shot taffeta gown cracks up.
A former vet nurse, now office administrator-cum-part-time hairdresser, Flain lives on a five-hectare block in West Melton, 20 minutes out of Christchurch, with two cows, a dog, two horses and four sheep. Until 2004 the menagerie included a partner of 11 years, but he was a townie and never truly belonged to the land.
“I knew it was you,” Doug says when he finds me. “I knew straight away by the texture of your skin.” By the time we’ve done body-balancing poses and given each other a Thai massage and closed our eyes and opened our mouths like baby birds while Yaffa places a piece of organic vegan chocolate on our tongues, we have fallen into the weekend, and who we were before seems very far away.
Read MoreIn these first weeks, I had a manic energy. Every 10 minutes I would receive an email. “Happypants is checking you out right now!” “Misha67 likes you!” “You received this email because cakeordeath! rates you very highly!” “You have a new message from NotReallyACheat!” “Notevenlikely is checking you out right now!” “Excite 2 wants to get to know you!” I would finish teaching, glance at my phone, and find that in the past hour, I had received 20 new email messages. From OkCupid alone, I was receiving more than a hundred a day. This was my fault: I simply needed to reset the email notification settings on my account.
Read MoreNino walked in and pushed his hair back off his forehead and looked at me. He had the air of a young Elvis, a constant flickering between cool and vulnerable. He styled himself like the rockabilly he wanted to be. He wore a leather jacket, a white teeshirt underneath and some blue jeans that wrapped his thighs tight. His hair and eyes were dark.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Hey,’ he said. Beat. ‘Can you tell me where a good bar is?’ His accent was working-class English. He had a nose like Ingrid Bergman. Perfect.
Read MoreOur dates were invariably disasters.
An ambitious 40-year-old business consultant came from out of town one Sunday and put herself up at SkyCity Hotel so she could get through the three dates she had scheduled for the evening. I found this out halfway through our date.
“Which one am I?” I asked. “The second,” she said. So at least I knew the pain wouldn’t last past 7.30pm.
When we finally left the bar, I leaned in for the goodbye kiss / hug, but she was already several metres away: “I’m just going to go,” she said. “These goodbyes are so awkward.”
“Ohhh! Shame!” one of a group of passing teenagers said, helpfully echoing my own feelings.
Read MoreWhen you find out someone you love is hurt, the world contracts itself inwards. In that instant, the only thing that matters is the crisis unfolding before you. Nothing existed before it. All the emotions that usually get drowned out by the deadening humdrum of everyday life come rushing to the surface. They were always there, buried beneath the drone of a desk job and the clatter of dishes, waiting for an opening. You realise with dawning horror how much you’ve always cared.
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