Or, “How Ryan Adams Wasn’t Ruined By Bad Habits, But By A Girl I Dated.” That’s not entirely correct. Actually, I’m fairly sure she hasn’t ruined him, but she did ruin my experience of his music. Pretty much irreparably. And not the record you’re thinking, either. So, no, not Heartbreaker – wonderful record though it is. This is a different story.

I’m back home for the first time in two years. It’s Christmas and I’m lonely, I’m out every night – calling close friends, old friends, not so close friends, folks whose number I still happen to have. One night, in the midst of the pre-Christmas good cheer, my friend BJ calls. “We’re going to a party. You’re coming, right?” I look around from the vantage of the stool where I’ve been propping up the bar for the last two hours. I have friends here. I’m warm. Why leave this comfort for a twenty minute hike in the snow to someone’s house who I’ve never met, to meet a friend who will a) be drunk and b) have a fight with his girlfriend, which I – as always – will have to break up? No brainer, really. I grab my coat, gun the shot I’d bought and head off. Twenty bone-crackingly cold minutes later (where do London taxis hide at Christmas?) I’m standing in a room with sixty people I don’t know and four people I do know. That would be the two couples who are not speaking to their significant others.

Then several things happen at once. BJ’s wife, who as predicted is drunk and not speaking to BJ, introduces me to A Girl. Only she’s not A Girl. She’s THE Girl. I’d been in love before; I’d been madly in love with my wife until a strange series of events involving her and an ex had driven us apart. But I’d never fallen like that.

At this point I could refer to tortuous clichés and dramatic metaphors, and they’d be irrelevant. It was falling – a pure, honest to God sensation of falling. All I know about her at this point is her name, but I have this sensation of having known her for years. After maybe thirty seconds. Electrifying. The next few hours pass in a weird, soft-focus dream. She’s sexy, smart, funny, intelligent, charming, and best of all she’s way out of my league.

Bit of background. I am (I think) a nice guy. I’m sometimes funny, sometimes smart, but mostly I’m shy. And, more importantly, no one’s ever going to mistake me for a heartthrob. Which is important, because The Girl is so out of my league that I can just relax and enjoy the experience – knowing that she’s probably got a boyfriend (who’s surely more suave, better looking, and more successful than me). She’ll leave with him, but at least I’ll have had a few hours with someone fun and interesting, and I’ll have had a nice time while my friends don’t talk to each other.

Only this doesn’t happen. What does happen is after a few hours we leave. We go home for coffee. More conversation. Kissing. Great kissing, as it happens. Earth-moving, time-stopping kissing. Then she leaves, but not before we agree to meet in a couple of days. So now it’s about six in the morning, and I’m sitting on the couch with a glass of wine, thinking “What just happened? Did that really happen?” I decide to put a CD on, and it’s Gold by Ryan Adams, and he gets to the chorus of “New York,” and the line, “Love won’t play any games with you any more, if you don’t want it to.” Ryan, you’re so right, I’m thinking. Truly – this evening, the stars are aligned. I am at one with the universe. How could I have thought that you were overrated and wordy and severely in need of editing?

What happened next: not good. At all.

Well, there are several weeks of passionate romance, including a three day stint when we only get up to eat. I can’t believe how lucky I am; she’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of in a woman. And I’m listening to Ryan a lot. He’s the soundtrack of my life at this point. Then one night, we go out. I’m nervous, because I want to tell her that I’m staying put, I’m not going back overseas, and she’s the reason. I want to stay here because of her. I want to stay and build on this wonderful thing we have. I’ll tell her when we get home. But I never get the chance. We get home, and she’s quiet. Distracted. Tense. “So what’s up, beautiful?” I ask, stroking her neck. (She loves having her neck stroked.) I’m ready to tell her the news. Then:

“I’m not enjoying this any more. I don’t want to see you any more.”

I mumble something, stunned. Then I leave. I walk for miles through the cold New Year streets, my internal monologue turning now and then into broken sobs.

I didn’t sleep a full night for at least a year. Couldn’t raise a smile for months. Threw myself into working harder than ever, to the point of exhaustion. I’ve never spoken to her since then. Can’t face it. I still can’t sleep and I haven’t been able to listen to that album since. I heard it in a bar a few months ago and had to leave. I’m still destroyed by what happened. Oh, and Ryan? You seriously need to start editing your records. Resist the urge to release everything you record, you lying asshole.