Over a pub lunch recently, I heard one of the best stories I have heard for a while. It was related by my mother and concerned a friend of her's, who shall remain nameless (although in all honesty, I was only half listening at first and couldn't tell you her name now, even if you put a gun to my head). The story came up because, for some reason, we had been talking about mental illness and how well people can recover from it. The friend was mentioned because she had endured a terrible relationship with her parents and, as a result, suffered a nervous breakdown at the age of 16 or 17. There was nothing particularly suprising about this fact, or her subsequent recovery, although I do know my mother regards her to be an exceptionally intelligent women, with a successful career behind her. No, what was suprising to me (although less so my mother), was how she met her future husband.
The subject, I was told, came up quite early on in their friendship, as they walked past the local psychiatric institution (long closed, since the Care in the Community reforms of the late 1980s). The friend mentioned that this was where she and her husband had first met. She went on to say that the husband (now deceased) had been Head of Psychiatry at the institution. My mother, quite naturally, asked whether she had been a nurse there at the time, to which the friend replied - "Oh no. I was a patient."
My initial reaction to this was one of mild shock and discomfort. I had visions of a brilliant but Machiavellian psychiatrist, using his experience, intellect and position of power to seduce and manipulate a vulnerable 17 year old girl. Reassuringly, and as is usual in life, the truth is neither as cliched or routine as most fiction. The couple actually met a number of years later, long after she had been discharged and made a full recovery. He, meanwhile, had been separated or divorced for at least a couple of years. Nevertheless, the story piqued my curiosity. The husband was at least 20 years her senior. They initially met whilst she was a patient under his care. As I listened, various questions occurred to me. Had he been personally involved in any of her treatment? Would he still be allowed to practice if the same thing were to happen today? Was it their respective intellect which drew them together or something more mutually dependent? And finally, how did their feelings for each other develop? Is it romantic to think that they were always there, lurking in the backs of their minds somewhere - or is that just plain creepy? On reflection, I think that's probably just plain creepy, but it's hard not to imagine at the same time.
I bring all of this up, of course, not because I've been obsessing about it ever since, but because today is Valentine's Day and, if there ever was a time to pontificate about a love story, I guess this is it. However, just as the above got me speculating, I often wonder what sort of questions people ask themselves about my own less-than-conventional love story with my husband. Actually, Valentines Day plays quite a big part in this, although not in the way you might think - because Valentine's Day 2002 was the day my boyfriend of the time got stinking drunk and admitted he'd been sleeping with one of our mutual friends (thus opening up a world of opportunity with other, more appealing men) and Valentine's Day, 2003, was the day the immigration authorities deported the next one back to his homeland of Albania. As you might imagine then, my feelings towards this particular celebration are somewhat mixed. Nevertheless, although undeniably crap at the time, both days turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
For anyone who doesn't know, Albanians aren't really supposed to come and live in the UK without special permission from the British Embassy. Usually, this special permission relies on things like a good education, money, the likelihood of a swift return etc. None of these things applied to my future boyfriend, a wannabe Brit, who just wanted to escape boredom, unemployment and the one-horse town he was holed-up in. So he did what any rational person would do in these circumstances, and hopped in the back of the nearest lorry headed for Dover (via, I should say, a cat and mouse trip round Italy, France, Italy, Belgium and back to France again). Still, all of that is another story and one he should probably tell.
The final outcome of the deportation and subsequent months spent filling out forms and taking trips to the British Embassy in Tirana was, of course, that we got married and have been married ever since. Again, the only rational thing to do in the circumstances. It's hard to describe the feeling of being forcibly separated from a loved one, particularly in those early, heady days of a relationship. In short, it's not a whole load of fun. Added to that, I had several, slightly awkward situations to deal with - telling the parents that the nice Italian boy I had been seeing for 11 months was actually an Albanian illegal immigrant, telling his boss of two years the same thing, introducing myself to the immigration and border officials at the detention centre in Dover Docks (and bumping into one of my former students in the process), dealing with Embassy officials, putting up with ignorant comments from certain colleagues (although, in fairness, others turned out to be legends), trying to raise funds to travel out there and, basically, a whole catalogue of other crap that I would rather not have had to be doing. So why did I do it? Well, according to some experts, it all comes down to chemistry.
My favourite description of this chemistry comes from a newspaper article, entitled 'What is Love? Theories on the greatest emotion of all', published last December in the Guardian, and it comes courtesy of famed theoretical physicist, Jim Al-Khalili:
"While lust is a temporary passionate sexual desire involving the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and oestrogen, in true love, or attachment and bonding, the brain can release a whole set of chemicals: pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin and vasopressin."
When you consider this cocktail of chemicals being released into the bloodstream, it is hardly suprising that love is often described as a form of insanity.
Regardless of the science, however, the big question still remains. What on earth is it that makes the brain behave in this deranged way in the first place? I can't answer that here but I have a feeling it has to do with a whole range of things including psychology, timing, luck, lust, affection, intellectual stimulation and, crucially, mutual trust and understanding. All things that are impossible to plan, control or pin down. Which, when these are considered, makes the act of scribbling a mawkish message in a gaudy bit of card seem a bit lame and pointless.
I suppose I should admit to having a problem with Valentine's Day. My problem is that it is all so conventional. Hardly surprising, as the version of it we know today was effectively invented by those mothers of convention, the Victorians. Before that, it was a tradition of courtship kept within the confines of the medieval aristocracy, where it probably should have stayed. It is really a bit like Christmas. Good for the kids, but loses some of its shine once you realise Santa Claus isn't real. What I mean by this is that the version of love that Valentine's Day seems to celebrate isn't real. The concept of love celebrated by Valentine's Day is the same concept that makes us seek out partners, simply because society expects us to have a partner and would judge us as a bit odd if we didn't. It is about social pressure and conformity. Which in my experience has nothing to do with the real thing.
In my view, the best love stories defy convention. Anyone who is single at this point in time should take heart in that. Human beings are geniuses at finding love in precisely the sorts of places they are not supposed to - at work, with other people's spouses, with people of the same sex when they are meant to prefer people of the opposite sex (and vice versa), with the girlfriends they knock up by accident, the people they started out hating, with former psychiatric patients and illegal immigrants and so on and so forth, ad infinitum. I'm not saying that this does not carry it's dangers and problems. I'm just saying that love found in these circumstances tends to be unselfconscious, more profound and, ultimately, more rewarding. It is also something that you can't predict, plan for or fit round a schedule, particularly not one date on the calendar.
