Coming together over concerts and spooks

Metallica and Halloween experiences show how a couple can give each other the unexpected gift of novelty.

If I hadn't married Mr T, I don't think I would have ever attended a Metallica concert. And if he hadn't married me, he would certainly never have bothered with hunting down a Halloween costume.

No matter how alike we might think we are - we both hate seafood, think people who hold loud conversations in the lift are strange and have no qualms about watching two movies in a row at the cinema - our differences are still notable.

I like to think we complement one another. I'm the loud extrovert; he's the quiet observer. I'm the "artsy" person who thinks it would be cool to paint geometric shapes on our walls before picking up a paintbrush and winging it; he's the logical mathematician who makes sure everything is perfectly aligned. I'm the one who experiments with tofu, quinoa and gluten-free products. He's the one who suffers silently before eventually demanding a burger.

We make an effort to support one another's interests and show respect - he waits at least 15 minutes before begging me to change the channel when I'm engrossed in watching Jamie Oliver cook a dish I would never attempt; and I get down to reading when he watches his latest animé episode.

And this is all why I didn't mind that my husband was possibly the first person in the UAE to buy Metallica tickets. I think it was the first time he did something for both of us without talking to me first.

I secretly dreaded going to the concert. I knew one song - Nothing Else Matters, obviously - and I was sure that a headache would accompany me throughout the evening. But Mr T's excitement could not be measured; I'd never seen him so jumpy, not even on our wedding day. Which he's going to have to answer for as soon as the euphoria from that concert wears off, but anyway, moving on.

To my surprise, though, I had an unbelievably good time that night - and left grateful that I had attended a concert that I might have missed if I hadn't happened to be married to a closet metalhead. It turned out I knew more than one song, and the energy from that band was enough to raise the dead.

Besides, when it got a little too loud, I just amused myself by watching Mr T, who was unaware I was staring. He seemed to be in another world.

I'm forcing Mr T into uncharted waters this week, as well. He's just purchased a costume that involves him wearing a skirt and not much else, and there's a Gershwin concert in our near future. Before I came into his life, the only costume he'd ever sported was a cut-out "S" glued on to his T-shirt, and if I'd asked him to name a jazz artist, Frank Sinatra would have been the best he could have come up with.

It's a good thing we found one another; our "interesting people" quotient increases considerably as a couple.

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