We got talking at a mutual friend's party. She asked what books I'd recommend.

Catch-22 was among those I mentioned. She texted me the next day, saying she’d found a copy and made a start on it.

Within a week, she’d finished it, and was effusive in her praise of it – and, by emphasised extension, of me. 

Another I soon suggested was Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being. 

She loved that too. I remember her - one sunny afternoon, as we lay semi-entwined on a riverbank - reading me out passages from it, so I could appreciate again their beauty and insight.

Then there was my favourite Shakespeare play, Othello.

That one she had her doubts about...

'The whole plot hinges on Othello's sexual jealousy.' She complained. 'He should have just told Iago that Desdemona can tup whoever she tupping likes.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'And equally if Hamlet hadn't been too concerned about his dad being murdered and usurped, there wouldn't have been much of a story there either.' I felt pretty good about that comeback.

Then she cheated on me with a Czech guy she met in a bar.

'I bet you made good use of your Kundera knowledge, chatting him up!' I demanded.

'Kind of,' she confessed. 'He hadn't read any though.'

'And you still fucked him?!'

She laughed.

Before long our relationship was in total freefall. 

She told me I needed to be the fun, interesting guy I'd been before, so she could remember why she'd loved me.

I told her I obviously couldn't be that guy while I felt our relationship was in total freefall!

'It's a Catch-22 situation,' she said contentedly.

And I thought, 'Fuck this shit into tiny, tiny pieces.'