The Rosie Project

Because after a while I would stop noticing them. The human brain is wired to focus on differences in its environment – so it can rapidly discern a predator. If I installed pictures or other decorative objects, I would notice them for a few days and then my brain would ignore them. If I want to see art, I go to the gallery. The paintings there are of higher quality, and the total expenditure over time is less than the purchase price of cheap posters.’ In fact, I had not been to an art gallery since the tenth of May, three years before. But this information would weaken my argument and I saw no reason to share it with Rosie and open up other aspects of my personal life to interrogation

Gene has a joke: ‘How can you tell if someone is a vegan? Just wait ten minutes and they’ll tell you.’

I was not wired to feel love. And faking it was not acceptable. Not to me. I had feared that Rosie would not love me. Instead, it was I who could not love Rosie.

Another world, another life, proximate but inaccessible.

The elusive . . . Sat-is-fac-tion.

provide me with a means of contacting her, I had an irrational feeling that, when I called, Rosie would realize that she had made some kind of error

I wanted her to fall in love with me.

We are officially married. Although I had performed the romantic ritual with the ring, I did not expect Rosie, as a modern feminist, to want to actually get married. The term ‘wife’ in Wife Project had always meant ‘female life partner’. But she decided that she should have ‘one relationship in my life that was what it was supposed to be’. That included monogamy and permanence. An excellent outcome.

An inability (or reduced ability) to empathise is not the same as an inability to love. Love is a powerful feeling for another person, often defying logic

We are considering reproducing (or, as I would say in a social encounter, ‘having children’). In order to prepare for this possibility, Rosie has ceased smoking, and we have reduced our alcohol intake. Fortunately we have numerous other activities to distract us from these addictive behaviours. Rosie and I work in a cocktail bar together three evenings a week. It is exhausting at times, but social and fun, and supplements my academic salary.

I had a great deal of valuable knowledge – about genetics, computers, aikido, karate, hardware, chess, wine, cocktails, dancing, sexual positions, social protocols and the probability of a fifty-six-game hitting streak occurring in the history of baseball. I knew so much shit and I still couldn’t fix myself