A Marine? EEEEEEEEEK!

I have dated some pretty strange men in the past.

And I have been dumped for some pretty bizarre reasons.

The trials of my love life have been mentioned on here before; remember the Valentine's Day disaster? And the first kiss?

Well things only went downhill from there really. When designing this post, I made a mental list of all the weird boys and strange men and bizarre situations I can remember... suffice to say, I could be here all day so instead, you will get them broken down, over several posts over the next few days. Come back at 4pm today for entry number 2: The Boy who Taught me Romance.

Post first kiss, my next tryst with romance was with a boy in holiday in France, I was just 16, he was nearly 17 and, in France's hot July, we spent a fortnight kissing on the beach and, in a much more unsavory choice, a disabled toilet (what can I say, we were young and had been told off for loitering near the pool). We held hands and told each other how much we were in love, we planned to run away with each other after we got home, he was going to join the marines and I was going to go with him and be a doctor (I had yet to get my GCSEs so not sure how that was going to work). On the last night, we exchanged jelly bracelets (it was the summer of 2000) and cried about how our evil parents were tearing us apart.

We texted and called for a while after that, always telling each other how we would be together again, and then I found out the deal breaker.

As you may recall, I have been forever obsessed with names. I always planned what I would call my future babies. I dreamt of a boy then twin girls and read name books to decide what I would call them. I was therefore thrilled when Mr Marine said that he wanted the same!

Fate ,16 year old me decided, and I eagerly set about telling him my names, for my son, Ronan, he did not have a problem with but when it got to my twins, my beautiful twins, Britney and Billie (lets just remember which year this was people....) he had an issue.

He was fine with Britney ('Bit weird to call my daughter after a bird I want to do but it kicks ass' - he was a classy guy) but Billie - no. Firstly, he didn't want to do Billie and secondly, he wanted his daughter to be called:

Shannaleah.

Like chandlier but without the D.

And just like that our love was over.