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I Said I Would, and I Did
The life-changing difference between “sincere” and “serious”
Ian was a sweet-natured Brit, one of those barstool boys who could tell stories better than anyone else I knew. He was a sportsman, a lover of dark, rich British pints, and had earned a PhD in Sports Medicine.
I’d met him on Match.com. He was younger by about five years. There was enough there for us to connect. It was 2001, newly into the new century.
Ian was a sky diver, pilot, scuba diver. In fact, an enthusiastic cave diver, which for anyone with knowledge of the sport knows can be terrifying. He was a bona fide expert at all of them. The real deal.
Ian was also a damned good photographer, talented writer, and immensely fond of extreme adventures. It suited him perfectly.
He could regale people for hours in that self-effacing, charming way of the great tale-teller. His stories hardly needed embellishment, for what he did for a living was plenty enough.
And he smoked like a chimney. He had a smoker’s cough like a backfiring Buick.