Ulterior Motives

It was not with the noblest of intentions that I began to question the young gentleman who was kindly walking me home from the pub. As we passed over the River Cherwell’s bridge, I gazed up at the shadowy rounds of mistletoe in the trees and I asked him: Where exactly was he from in Germany? What did it look like there? Were there any interesting places to visit in his area? Was he intending to visit home over spring break?
Now, let me step back and explain to you what my ignoble intentions were, why I was so very motivated by them, and how I’d gotten onto the bridge with the gentleman in the first place.
Oxford University terms are short and intense, with broad breaks between them. Sometimes during these breaks, or at least preceding their end, there are collections or meetings. But still it leaves you with a good amount of time, say a month or so, when you’re at loose ends. Some Oxford students return home at this time, rebuilding their funds by working in a local pub while their brain tries to recover from the merciless pounding they’ve given it. Others travel. Since I was a study abroad student who’d never been to Europe before, I had no collections to worry about and I intended to use this time to travel.
Before heading over to Oxford, I’d worked a summer job in a restaurant (I was terrible at this job) and I’d saved up $7,000. Halved by the attrition of the exchange rate, £3,500 for a year wasn’t much to live on–room, but not board, was covered by my program–or travel with. Between my winter travels, unexpected expenses, and the very slim reserve for my spring travels, I was on a budget of £10 per week. I could not really supplement my income, being on a student visa, through work. A single night at the pub could destroy my grocery money for the week if I wasn’t careful. By and large, I made do with bulk lentils and rice from a Turkish store. Sometimes I supplemented this with tubs of Turkish yoghurt, tinned tomatoes, tea, kiwis, and flay-your-internal-organs Tesco-value gin. Seriously. Don’t drink Tesco-value gin.
You can see why I would be strongly motivated to save money, any money at all. An extra quid or two would be enough to buy me, luxury of all luxuries, a drip coffee at Blackwell’s where I could nurse it for six hours while I wrote.
So when I’d heard that this nice young gentleman came from Germany, I’d set out to mercilessly use his residence as a base for my travels. Now, walking beside him, I led him to the question I so wanted him to ask me:
“Would you like to stay at my house when you’re in Germany?” he asked me curiously.
“I’d love to,” I said. My plan had succeeded!
“Excellent.” He sounded pleased. “My mother always wants to meet my friends.”
Oh no. No, no, no, no. No. His mother always wanted to meet his friends? She would be so onto me with her keen-ass mommy senses. The fearsomeness of meeting a stranger’s family aside…friends? Were we friends? I’d seen him in passing a couple of times. How well did I actually know him, now that I had conned him into letting me stay with him? Hmm. Maybe I needed to get to know him better before this series of events actually happened. Yes. That would mitigate these problems nicely. How crafty was that! I decided, right then and there, shivering in the damp British springtime, that I’d become friends with him.
Approximately ten days before I was meant to stay at his house and meet his family, I became his girlfriend, the first girlfriend he’d ever brought home. His family was excited to meet me. I was terrified—in the sense that a skinned eel being dropped into a pot of boiling oil is terrified and also confused in an oh-how-the-fuck-did-this-happen-so-fast way.
I think he may have had his own ulterior motives in inviting me to his house that spring.
And three years later, we married on a rocky Northwestern beach in a rare burst of sunshine.