Here I am with my first girlfriend Rochelle at her step-sisters Batmizvah.

I had gotten some small insights into Jewish history and culture living in the suburbs around St Kilda in Melbourne.  When I was working for the Catholic Church in a building on St Kilda road, it had some interesting other tenants I would see in the lift, including the American Military and a Jewish company of some sort. I became a 'smoko' friend of a Hassidic Jew who would tell me each day about things like Kabbalah, golems and the new Moshiach. Rochelle's family were non-religious, but I still felt quite privileged to get some small insight into this ancient and fascinating culture. I've always found the intelligence, complexity and depth of the Jewish people I have met to be of note. Perhaps not by coincidence my wife Cat also has some Jewish ancestry.

Rochelle was the person who tried to tell me to be an adult, and although I'm not sure I've made it still, it was the wake-up call I needed.  Ever since then, I have been very open to learning about myself, and particularly the ways I can improve as a human being. Perhaps the most consequential way I have done this is through the mirror of my partners; each one has given me something different that is core to my being. 

Rochelle and I dated for somewhere between two and three years, ending when she finally went to Japan. When she came back I guess she realised it wasn't a healthy relationship, and although I found this difficult to accept, after a long time I came to realise she was right. It was a very emotional relationship for me, and perhaps for her as well in different ways.  I was never sure where my love, lust and self-loathing began and ended, and it all presented itself in a ball of emotion that tossed me around like a storm. 

For all of my anguish, I finally became a more mature and kinder person because of Rochelle's influence and I'll always look back on the time our lives so deeply intertwined fondly. There is something indelibly and uniquely etched in your heart by each person you fall in love with, but the first is something differently potent still. As you experience different relationships you cannot help comparing each to the previous ones, how they are the same, how they are different, but with the first person there is nothing to compare; your first love is love, they define love to you. In this heady experience, dealing with new emotions, vulnerabilities, the deep evolutionary psychology involved, I hope it was not too much of a burden for her to bear.