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I have a few of my 'x's' on Facebook, but none that I would have had a full on relationship resulting in a bad break-up.  Some of them I dated a few times, I guess I was always after the one I couldn't have and also as soon as they were interested I would loose interest, I think it was all about the chase.

When I was 17 a friend of mine put an ad in the "Paratus Pret" for me, this was an army magazine and I guess it was the only reading material that some Army guys had while up on the border.  You see South Africa had conscription in those days, all white males were made to go to the army for 2 years when they finished school, or college or university.  I remember at school, in summer we would have assembly in the Quad and the principal calling all the guys who were turning 16 and they had to fill in their forms for the army.

Most guys dreaded it because you had heard so many stories about it.  Anyway to get back to to the reason for this post, (I'll have to do another post on the SA defense force) so I had this ad in the Paratus and within a few weeks of it being published I swear I had about 100 letters, I felt like a celebrity!  But of course I could not write to all of them, so those that enclosed a photograph and were nice looking, got put in one pile, those that sounded nice or had a nice handwriting got put in another pile, the Afrikaans letters or semi-Afrikaans went in another pile, and of course there were just those that you knew you were never going to answer.

Out of all the correspondence I had a letter from a guy called Dion.   Dion was in the Parabats in Tempe in Bloemfontein.  It was 1982 I had just stated working - anyway D would write occasionally but most of the time he would just phone.  It is so long ago now that I don't remember any of the conversations.  The things that do stick vividly in my mind, were D coming to my work to say hi, he would just drop in - I worked in a department at Barclays bank with about 20 other girls, D would pop in with his uniform on, he was 6ft 3 and good looking, and he would have to come to the pigeon hole, it was the reception area to ask for me.

It was almost quite prestigious having a boyfriend in the army and of course if they were good looking all the girls would be really envious.  That was round about the time that Iris at work got married and I needed a partner for the wedding, no wait that was a at the end of 1983 and I asked D to go with me - a whole story on it's own.

Then there was the time that D landed up in Jail in Bloemfontein, a whole group of them went to a farm looking to buy some marijuana from the locals, and of course they wouldn't sell it to them, so I think a scuffle broke out the cops were called and the guys landed up in Prison as it became a civil case.  I got a phone call from his mom and him and the next thing I was on a train down to Bloemfontein to see him, spent the day and took the train back that night.

Then I got a phone call from his mom when he was in the Military hospital @ Voortrekkerhoogte, they were supposed to be off to the border but D was on a trip of his own and landed up in the psychiatric ward at Voortrekkerhoogte.

Another time I remember was when my friend Mercia was in town from PE which would also have been 83/84 and she was staying at a hotel in Hilbrow, D met me there with a friend of his and we spent the night chatting and drinking and all ended up sleeping on the floor in her hotel room.