In lockdown, are we missing the chance encounters that turn our lives upside down?

In the latest of his reflections about place and pathway, Will Gore remembers the house party at which he met his wife, and ponders how many potential love affairs are being lost right now to social distancing

Booze, Britpop, and the love of my life (AFP/Getty)

I met my wife over a bowl of potpourri.

We were at a house party, not long after starting at sixth form college. Most of the attendees were friends from secondary school, but the host was a sociable sort and had invited various others who she had met since we started our A-level courses. As far as I remember there was no particular occasion to celebrate, aside from the fact that the host’s parents had gone away.

In the grand scheme of things, it was a delightfully tame affair: maybe thirty people gathered together in a nice detached house in a small Cambridgeshire village, drinking whatever alcohol we’d either plundered from our parents’ kitchen cupboards or persuaded them to buy for us. Perhaps one or two of the older-looking among us had managed to get served in the local shop. Not me.

Not having been much of a party-goer until then, I remember being quite nervous about the whole affair. For one thing, I wasn’t keen on drinking (that changed); for another, I was shy about meeting new people (that changed too, but only up to a point). I was also convinced that every conceivable (or inconceivable) party-based horror would come to pass: gate-crashers would arrive and terrorise the place; the police would arrive and lock us up for underage boozing; someone would take drugs and die from an overdose. I’d read about these things – or seen them on Grange Hill or Byker Grove.

There had been, I was sure, a spark. Or at least a hint of light. But for the rest of our time at college, there was no hint of anything romantic happening between us

None of them happened. Someone had some weed I think, and there might have been an incident involving the garden pond, but that was about the worst of it.

It was, as it transpired, the perfect house for parties – and we made good use of it over the next few years. There was a large kitchen at the front, with impressive refrigerator capacity; towards the back were a dining room and big sitting room, with French windows opening onto the long garden. We listened to the best Britpop had to throw at us and imagined we were at the centre of the universe.

Between the kitchen and sitting room was an entrance hall. To the left (looking from the kitchen) was the main door into the house and then the stairs; to the right was a utility room and bathroom. It was in the hall that I met my wife.

I suppose we’d seen each other before, but not had a conversation. She was pretty, with searching eyes and I made a nervous remark about the potpourri on the hall table being called Wild Honey, the title of a Beach Boys track. She liked the song and we talked about music, before a friend came along and somehow whisked her away to another part of the house. I slurped my supermarket own-brand cider and went back to talking about Fantasy Football League with my mates.

There had been, I was sure, a spark. Or at least a hint of light. But for the rest of our time at college, there was no hint of anything romantic happening between us. We became good friends, part of a tight group who hung out every day and got pissed together on Friday nights. The potpourri moment faded, as potpourri does. Eventually, we got together with other people, went to universities at different ends of the country and knew less of one another. That might easily have been that.

But of course, love is a strange thing. We reconnected more regularly a few years later when a close mutual friend went travelling and ordered us to stay in touch while she was away. Then, by lucky chance, I happened to find myself in Edinburgh for work and we met up for the first time in ages. The light was still there and I realised just how desperately I was in love with her. Months afterwards, we finally became a couple – seven years on from that first, brief encounter. We were married five years later.

I’ve thought a lot about this in recent days; about how my life was shaped by a random conversation in a friend’s hallway at a party, and by a diktat from a friend who was heading off around the world, and by a work trip to a distant city – all things which would be impossible in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

And it’s made me wonder, what encounters are being missed right now; how many future lovers, wives or husbands are not finding one another; which best friends are never meeting because they are only walking in their own circles, their paths never crossing? Maybe Twitter and Facebook are taking the place of actual talking. Perhaps Houseparty is doing the job of, well, house parties. But can you really see the full beauty of a person’s eyes through a computer screen? You certainly can’t smell even the most pungent of potpourri.

Still, we’re resourceful creatures. So, reach out however you can; keep your social distance, but break your circles.