4. Ten interesting facts about yourself
Paul: What? Oh, god. We’ll be here all day. Okay, let’s see:
1. My name is Paul Alfred Marshall. Alfred was my great-grandfather and he died in the war.
2. I’m a nurse. I love it. Don’t mock it. I love it.
3. My best friend in school was Glenn, but his life now revolves around kids, so we grew apart. I never really considered kids.
4. My best friend now is Lon. He’s hurting badly, but I think he’s on the road to recovery.
5. I drink beer after work. I know it is a cliché with the Aussie male kicking back with a beer after a long day at work, but it relaxes me.
6. I love hanging out with my parents and sister and brother. It sounds weird to some, but we get along really well, and there’s always laughter in our house.
7. I’ve always wanted to visit Paraguay. When I was a teen, I thought it was pronounced Para-gay. I thought “para” meant “many” – like paragraph meant lots of words, and parachute mean lots of chutes. I thought a country with lots of gays would be fun.
8. I think I always knew I was gay.
9. I started working out at the gym so I could bulk up and not be picked as a bottom-boy all the time. After that, I just continued because I love it.
10. I grew up Anglican. I never had trouble reconciling my faith to my sexual orientation.
Andrew: Ten? About me? What are your answers, Paul? Can I cheat off you?
1. My name is Andrew Richard Lockwood. I never bothered to ask my parents about the Richard stuff.
2. I’m the CEO of Cabott’s Oil and Gas Exploration. We are a small but important player in the mining field, and our employees are top class. Mining is booming in Western Australia and anyone who wants to be in on the wave needs to act fast. If you have a parcel of land you would like explored for mining potential, we can prepare a geological and archaeological report… Oh. Sorry. You’re probably not interested in that bit. I’ll just say I’m the youngest CEO in my field and leave it at that.
3. I always wanted children. I have two of them and I could not love anything more in my life.
4. I have a wife. Her name is Kristy. Our relationship is… complicated. We’re married, but it’s not… It’s just complicated.
5. I drink Scotch. I like the burn.
6. Playing with my kids is the best fun I could ever have outside the bedroom. There’s nothing more satisfying than hearing their laughter.
7. I can’t stop laughing at the fact that Paul thought it was Para-gay. I’m getting glared at.
8. It took me a while to work out I was gay, and I’ve only recently stopped trying to change that.
9. I started working out at the gym to spend time away from the house and get my head on straight. Of course there were a lot of perv opportunities at the gym too, but mostly I used the gym as my escape.
10. I grew up Catholic. There’s no reconciling being gay to that.
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