Will Seymour

LISTEN to Will talk about his column on CamFM: [audio:https://thetab.com/uk/cambridge/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/2011/05/Cam-FM-Will-Seymour1.mp3|titles=Cam FM Will Seymour]

When friends and enemies remind me that I have to capture a wife before I leave Cambridge, expressing concern or glee (respectively) at the prospect of my talking to people in the real world, I dismiss their jeers with nonchalance. “HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA,” I shout maniacally, clenching my effervescing jaw, “I don’t care about that!!!”

But, discerning reader, do not be fooled by my austere countenance in these matters (I was only acting method). In fact, unbeknownst to these friendly japesters, I wander the world with the panoramic scrutiny of Sherlock, inwardly assessing every ladywoman I encounter, all in the hope of finding: The One.

Among previous such aims as Running The Three Minute Mile, and catching the Higgs Boson, Finding The One has become the last remaining goal that is attainable as I make my way through this term.

Will searches far and wide

Are you The One? If you can understand English – which you probably can – then you are certainly eligible. But, discovering *you* is as difficult as finding hay in a haystack. Hay being, unlike a needle, taxonomically homogenous with all the other hays, and not at all magnetic, (however big your magnet might be). As Bottom makes abundantly clear in some Shakespeare thing, ‘of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.’ Exactly.

Thus I am left to do my “marriage eyes” all over town. “Do you fancy a quick marriage?” my eyebrow suggests furtively at a passerby. “Veil or fascinator?” my quivering upturned palms ask of a grocer. “Just friends and family,” I shout at a fellow swimmer. To up my odds, I sojourn all manner of demographic insertions – ring roads, petting zoos, hotel rooms. There’s just no way of knowing for sure.

And there are so many loverly girls, of all shapes and sizes. Only yesterday, a comely maiden advised me to “mind the gap” at Potters Bar. Her concern for my wellbeing endured the entire morning, and left me smitten at her thoughtfulness. Her dulcet tones now fade only in my memory. It’s easy to love someone so lovely and considerate, I muse warmly.

But just as I was stuffing a love letter (scrawled on a misplaced glove, for want of stationery) down a ventilation shaft at Kings Cross, another cordial damsel picked me out of the crowd. It would have taken me years to count everyone at the station, so many there were, and of them all, Rachel had chosen me for her Exclusive Car Insurance Policy. She even offered to do all the paperwork, just like an angel would. An instant and well structured rapport began immediately, and she left shortly afterwards with my number. For many minutes, I was surer than as ever that I’d found The One.

Before I could dwell on that, though, I met Alison. Alison was fantastic. She was literally the best thing I had ever seen. And up close, she was even bigger!!! Alison’s personality was so good, I couldn’t read for two weeks afterwards! Her eyes were so spherical (I judged from what I could see of them), they would make billiard balls look like the Ice Age! So supple were her joints, she carved a billion riverdances with every twitch of her aging scalp. If she were a Spirograph, she would be fucking mental. And massive.

But it was only when I saw that she had saved her last Big Issue for me, that I knew Alison might be The One. And, as ever, the cruelty of reality descended crashingly upon my brow. Boarding my train, I realised our time was through forever. I sped back to Cambridge (tearfully) regrouping, before resuming my usual interview cycle with my fellow passengers: “Have you seen The One?!”