AN ONRUSH OF BLOOD TO THE HEART

Falling in love is a very beautiful feeling. It makes you behave in a silly way. A man can also do things that can be termed as (allow me to borrow a feminine word from a feminine friend of mine) daft! I have personally, done my fair share of daft things in my life. One of them happened one day while I was visiting a woman I had met on the eve of Valentine's Day, along time ago.

I can still remember the day, as if it was just the other day. I went to her uncle's house. Those days I had a meat allergy. This means (in case you are wondering) I did not eat meat. In fact I never went near anywhere meat was being cooked. If we were having meat at home I would be given five shillings so I could buy an egg. Just a single egg. Up to this day I tend to think that my family shortchanged me. How could they give me just an egg while they ate meat and drunk its soup? I am almost checking through the yellow pages to find a number I can call (free of charge) and tell them I was abused as a child. Then I remember I have go to finish what I was meant to tell you first.

Every time I ate meat my whole body would start itching. Then as I scratched to ease the itch, it would start swelling. A minute later, my stomach would start aching, which was followed by instant diarrhea. As I entered the woman's house there was nothing to prepare me for the transformation I was going to undergo. The woman (I kind of have forgotten her name, okay?) welcomed me with a bottle of sizzling Sprite. As I drunk the Sprite and tried as much as I could to make small talk, she told me she was cooking meat for our lunch. Lunch, for just the two of us. I wanted to tell her I was allergic to meat. I was just about to open my mouth when she came back to the room and said...

"Have you ever watched the Titanic?"
"No," I said.
"It is a romantic movie," she continued, dangling a spoonful of the meat she was cooking, for the two of us (I think after this I should call my ex girlfriend and ask whats up?)
"Okay," I said, without knowing what else a man who is allergic to meat is supposed to say when told by a woman he wants to impress that a movie is romantic.
"You are going to like, just like my meat a little later on," she said.
"Okay," I replied, take aback (hey, has anyone been taken aforward? let me know, will ya?)

The movie started and I stayed glued to my seat. The movie started. I don't remember all the details. But I remember seeing Jack and Rose falling heads over heels (I don't know what this means) with each other. Jack was talented and very poor. And though Rose had a marriage that wasn't working her husband had everything. As the movie continues (Rose and Jack are on a sea voyage) the two do something daft. They fall in love. They make love, they kiss, they hide, they get discovered and Jack gets a beating. When the movie ends, the woman goes to the kitchen and comes back with a steaming plate of meat.

There and then I decide I am going to eat meat, for the first time in my life. The movie i have just watched have inspired me to do the impossible. I am in love and i am going to impress the woman who has spent her time (letting me see the romantic movie and cooking me a meal for two). She brings the food. We eat. A minute later my body starts to itch. I know what is coming next. I decide to make a move before it does.

"But I thought you came to see me?" she protests.

That is when I did something daft.I left without explaining why I was leaving. I knew I was saving my face after having eaten meat, which was daft in the first place. That was long ago. Now I eat meat and I still feel falling in love is daft.