The Setting
"This building's just been refurbished" Dean told me as we climbed the stairs. The stairwell looked as though it hadn't seen any attention for years, and Dean added "not that you'd ever notice" under his breath as though he'd sensed my thoughts. I grimaced and said nothing, preferring to make sure I knew the route we were taking - a precaution in case I needed to re-trace my steps quickly, should the building show signs of imminent collapse. When we had reached our floor, we traversed a narrow corridor towards a swipe card access-controlled door. Dean waved his card, a light flashed green, and Dean pushed the door, holding it open so that I could make it into the office too. I didn't know it then, but this was the office that would change my life.

An hour or so later, I'd been shown the kitchen, the medical room and the all-important room for natural breaks. Hands had been shaken, names and roles had been heard and instantly forgotten, smiles had been flashed, politically correct jokes had been told, sarcastic comments had been made, documents had been thrust into my hands, I'd been given my very own access token so that I could swipe into the office myself, and by this point, I was actually starting to feel as though these people thought I was someone special. Almost as if she could sense this, Claire - my new manager - showed me to my desk. It felt as though the area was specifically designed to take away any sense of specialty felt by its occupant. To my fore, there was a beautifully unobstructed view of the rear quarters of the local extra-large Laser printer. About twelve feet to my left and three to my right were matching six-foot partitions. Behind me was a window, which looked out onto another building over the entrance to the car-park, far below. Any hope of at least getting some fresh air was dashed as I realised that the windows had all had their handles removed. From that point onwards, it felt a bit like prison.

I was relieved when Kathy, a colleague from my regular office turned up. At last, here was someone familiar, with whom I could moan about the conditions of our confinement without the need to spend three months getting to know her first. And so, before I knew it, several days had passed, and we were getting quite settled. I had known Dean from work previously, and so we used to go for our twice-daily caffeine fix with Kathy and a couple of other people from our new team.

First Sight
One cloudy autumn day in 2006 found me at my desk, having just returned from such a trip. I was reviewing some actual paper documents, as my new laptop and email account hadn't yet materialised. The location of our paradise meant that we had a view of about twenty feet of wall (should I have made the effort to look around, or over, the printer). We learned about the people around us by observing them as they passed through our twenty-foot field of vision, on their way from one part of the office to another. On the day in question, I was reclining in my chair at rather a jaunty angle that just happened to afford me a clear view past the printer. I became aware of footsteps approaching, and caught sight of a tall female form in my peripheral vision. She was walking briskly and confidently, and she quickly came into focus. As a matter of fact, she came into focus from the feet upwards - such was the angle of my recline - and I was impressed, strangely enough, by the shapeliness of her ankles and calves. I realise that this probably makes me sound like some kind of pervert, but frankly, I don't care. (In my defense, her ankles and calves were accentuated by the heels and the just-below-the-knee cropped trousers she was wearing). As she came fully into view, I let my eyes take her in.

She was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. She walked tall and erect, with her head held high, chin up, looking straight ahead. Her arms swung gracefully by her sides, and her demeanour exuded confidence. Her hair was long, sumptuous and dark. Its natural curls screamed "passionate" - the sort of hair in which you want to entwine your hand, the better to kiss its owner. Her face was pretty and soft and noble, capable, confident, elegant and proud. Her eyes were gentle, bordered by long, soft lashes, and she wore an expression of slight sadness that made me want to make her laugh, even if only once. I knew I could never do it though - knew I could never make her laugh. She was far too gorgeous to even realise my existence. I could picture her in nightclubs, being photographed by the Metro's "Guilty Pleasures" correspondent, and featuring in Hello magazine. I dismissed her as unreachable, and went back to my document.

Who's that girl?
Work must have been busy for her at that time. She walked past a few times a day, and eventually I could contain my curiosity no longer. "Who's that girl that keeps walking past our desks?" I asked Dean. "What girl's that then?" he asked, quite reasonably, as she was nowhere near us when I asked my question, and all the more reasonably since Dean didn't sit anywhere near us, and so had no idea as to who were the players of the "intermittent guest" role in our twenty-foot wall slot. "The tall pretty one." I replied, a bit lost for words to describe her. "She's - you know - really tall, and pretty. Long curly brown hair. I think she sits over there" I said, waving my hand in a vague manner that covered half of London. "Ah", he said in a knowing voice. "That's Caitlin. She's cool. I sung with her and Sarah in a karaoke once. I was smashed - it was mental!"

"Caitlin", I repeated thoughtfully. "Cheers mate".

Now that I knew her name, it seemed more likely that I would be able to make some kind of contact with her, even though I was still convinced that she wouldn't want to know me. I supposed that she must be harassed by hopeful men on a constant basis, and that all of them would be significantly better looking than I - a tall thin bloke in Pavarotti's suit.

One morning, I was sitting reviewing more paperwork when I sensed that someone was standing at the printer. I looked up abruptly from my document, and met the gaze of Caitlin. I don't think she was already looking at me - I think that my sudden movement had attracted her attention. Either way, I was staring wide-eyed and helpless, my brain incapable of finding something suitable to say. It arranged various unhelpful phrases at a leisurely pace, while I flapped, looking more stupid by the millisecond. Eventually, relief came with the arrival of a suitably benign greeting. "Hi" I snapped, my smile coming and going with the speed of a camera shutter. I dropped my gaze back to the paperwork with a look of studied attention, and held it there, frozen and glassy-eyed, until I sensed that Caitlin had gone. I let my features relax, my jaw dropping open almost to the floor. "Oh. My. God." I mouthed, to nobody in particular. Kathy giggled, a little excessively I felt. She knew all about my fascination for Caitlin. I was convinced that the episode had shown Caitlin that I was a complete fool, and that she'd never talk to me now.

All Talk
My chance to actually have a conversation with Caitlin came when she requested some work to be done by my team, and I was assigned the task. A few queries arose from the work, and naturally enough, I needed to talk to Caitlin to sort them out. So I sent her an email asking if she had time to discuss the issues, and when she confirmed that she had, I plucked up the courage to actually walk over there and talk to her. I don't normally have problems with confidence, but with her, I just couldn't do the small talk. I launched nervously into my little set of prepared questions about the work, stumbling sometimes over my words as I went. Caitlin listened patiently, and answered perfectly calmly and professionally. In fact, she was more than just professional. She was nice. Really nice. My vision of her as unreachable began to waver for the first time.

Humble Beginnings
A few weeks later, someone organized a trip to the local cinema to watch Borat. Even though I couldn't go, I had an idea that Caitlin might be going. I decided that at the very next opportunity, I would mail Caitlin to innocently ask if she'd been. The mail itself was a masterpiece:

Hi Caitlin :-)

  Did you see Borat?

Can you imagine my surprise and delight when she replied? Not only did she reply, but she asked me a question too!

Hi Dan, yep, I did indeed. Did you?

That brief exchange was the start of a torrent of emails that cemented our friendship. It's how we got to know each other, and how we used to waste each other's time when we should have been working. (It's how we still waste each other's time when we should be working.) For me, there are few more welcome sights than the bold "unread mail" indicator in Outlook, on the special folder reserved just for Caitlin's mails.