On the day after his 17th birthday Jonathan went to Crystals to celebrate. Having gotten his first mobile phone the previous day he made sure to give his number to everyone he met, including his friend's little sister (that would be me). At this point I made the best decision of my life by returning the favour. Jonathan promptly offered to buy me a drink, only to turn round and order Greg to the bar when I accepted! I was due to start at St Andrew's university that September and Josh still had 1 year left of school so a drunken meeting seemed unlikely to turn in to anything serious. Thankfully Jonathan used my number numerous times until I finally worked up the courage to return his calls. Thus started an amazingly wonderful ten year relationship. One of the happiest days of my life was seeing Jonathan at my halls of residence on the first day of the school's October break. After a summer spent in one another’s company Jonathan and I decided to continue our relationship long distance. Yet again the odds said no but it worked. We finished growing up together and grew closer rather than further apart as Jonathan provided invaluable support to me whilst studying and I in turn provided support to Jonathan whilst playing Final Fantasy and Resident Evil, seriously he'd never have gotten such high scores if I hadn't been egging him on. As well as supporting me, thrashing monsters and working in the Village Inn Jonathan managed to fit in college during the early years of our relationship. After four years apart I was supposed to move to East Kilbride in 2003. However, when I got the opportunity to study for my Masters Jonathan was completely supportive, even though it meant another year apart. In June 2004 I finally make it back to East Kilbride having secured a PhD place at Strathclyde University. Between my grant and Jonathan's salary we were able to rent a 2 bedroom flat in Calderwood. At first we worried that we would miss out on the finer things in life but it soon became clear that Jonathan's tips from the pub would keep us in beer, wine and takeaways quite nicely. Oh and Jack Daniels of course! A few months after moving into the flat Jonathan started another I.T. course whilst still working full time in the pub. This meant that though living together Jonathan and I still maintained our relationship largely by the wonders of the mobile phone for the first couple of years. Having gained his HND in 2006 Jonathan then embarked on his career as a software developer. This finally allowed Jonathan and I to spend more than just Sundays together and thankfully this improved our relationship further; we were both quite concerned that I would drive Jonathan insane but thankfully we was very very easy going and even managed to mellow me somewhat. On the few occasions he did run out of patience he would leave the flat for a wee while but I always knew he would return. And return he did, generally to a cleaner flat - hmmm, the only way to get me to do house work possibly?! In 2008 Jonathan finally got his wish for a new kitchen. We choose it and he and his dad built it. It was designed to give Jonathan the best use of work top space for cooking and cocktail making and to have room for all his many appliances. The kitchen was bought in February, delivered in March, started being built in April and finished in September! Even though it took so long to complete, due to being built whilst Jonathan was working full time at West Lothian Council, once finished it looked fabulous. Which makes it quite understandable that Jonathan was slightly annoyed when in the August I asked if we could please move to Aberdeen. Due to the nature of my work Jonathan always maintained that he was happy to move if a good position in my field was offered to me. Of course he was hoping for somewhere like Australia or America but agreed to move anyway. Unfortunately, my new company wanted me to start ASAP so I started in October 2008, necessitating the return of the long distance relationship. Thankfully, as neither of us was studying the weekend visits this time were much more frequent than before - every week or two as opposed to once a month. Once again the mobile phones were used frequently and once again our relationship survived. The parting did have some benefits for Jonathan’s social life. For the first time he was living on his own. This meant that visits from friends became more frequent and he often made cocktails for his sister and her friends when they visited. I on the other hand became addicted to Grey’s Anatomy and was drinking white wine rather than red. Though being apart was difficult.