We spent many hours with each other over the next weeks and months and became a team of two lonely souls against the rest of the world. We relied upon each other for our every need and spent the next three years in a cocoon together. If she left me, I would be in the deepest shit. I did everything I could to make sure that it was the same for her. We led our lives inside a huge warm watermelon never questioning whether it was for the best out of fear of what the answer might be. I was very, very fucking comfortable and assumed she felt the same.

Then one night I returned to our flat and she was gone. She left me a note apologizing and explaining that she felt she had wasted three years of her life and it was time to move on. She was right. I wasn’t devastated but unsettled enough to return to live with my mum in Leeds in an alternative hot melon. As the pain retreated I was struck by the thought that I had never really fancied Layla. She had spoken to me and that had been enough to send us on our wasteful journey. Still, I had been a boyfriend and I had lost a sliver of my fear of girls.

Grace interrupted my flow.

‘Am I meant to feel sorry for you?’

‘No, I’m just giving you the facts.’

‘Just out of interest, why did you stay together that long if everything was so shit?’

‘I don’t know, Grace, I think I was hoping it would just fizzle out or that she would end it. Have you ever lived inside a warm melon? It’s very soothing – makes it hard to leave.’

‘I would never live inside a large fruit, Gary – especially a warm one. It’s obviously going to rot in the end. You just didn’t have the bottle to end it. Typical bloke. And you didn’t even fancy her. What a prick. So, how did you meet the other girlfriend?’

I told her about my courtship of girlfriend number two: Anne.

I was twenty-four years old and living at home with my mum in Leeds. I had a job at the Town Hall processing planning applications. The work was easy, repetitive and dull, which suited my general malaise perfectly. One evening a few of the others in my part of the office were going to a comedy evening at a nearby pub. They asked me if I wanted to tag along. I sensed that the invite was motivated by politeness and not a genuine desire for me to come, but I agreed to go anyway. I’m fascinated by nervous, out-of-their-depth performers. It’s like watching myself get tortured without actually having to experience any pain.