Tomorrow is a very special day for me. when I joined GA in April last year, i was lost. I was very much alone and very desperate.

Successful at my job, mainly because in the absence of a life (and love) i worked 15-18 hour days. I was even on occasion taking an extra set of clothes to work, catching 3 hours sleep on the couch in my office, and then starting all over again. I was a mess. I wasn't eating, I had no friends, no social outlet. The person I was closest to in the world was my boss, and hell, we really were not that close.

My personal relationships failing, my health began to suffer. The marked decline in my health in the 3 years before last April were astonishing - except that I didnt notice. I was too busy working.

My only "gay" outlet was some stories I had stumbled across - the "Chronicles of an Academic Predator". As I got consumed in the world of stories, a hunger grew for more. I was reading them on my iPhone on the way to work. I was reading them in meetings.

I clicked a wrong button one day, and somehow ended up here at GA, and having lurked for a while, I decided to join up.

Following from a blog entry I wrote, I had caught someones attention. He has a very forceful personality and we started talking in chat, then through IMs, then through Yahoo. We had a shared interest in politics, and so he stayed up with me most of election night watching the results come in, even though he had work the next day. I was falling in love fast.

At the end of June 2010, we met for the first time, and when I held his hand for the first time, the feeling was electric. I knew right then that this was no fluke - i wasn't desperately clinging on to any driftwood of affection that was passing by. This wasn't a lifeline to a drowning man. It was a whole damn cruiseship. The real deal.

The last year has been the BEST of my life. I work less hours (around half as many, truth be told), a travel, i have someone who loves me, emails me when im at work, we chat every night and have PERFECT visits every month or so (sometimes more, sometimes less). My health is almost unrecognisable. I have something on my face, called a smile, that still frightens my work colleagues. they all wonder where the ruthless soul-less manager has gone, and where the hell he found a conscience.

My man - the sexiest, most handsome, most talented, remarkable, amazing, beautiful, adoreable, charming, SUPERLATIVE man - has changed my life. And so tomorrow is our anniversary, and I am determined that it will be, the first of many.

West