I thought I was too cool for love. My rock idol knew better

Trent Dalton

On 10 January 2000 I started my first job in journalism at the Brisbane News. I was 20 years old, a starry-eyed rube from suburban Bracken Ridge who didn’t even know what a flat white was.

On my first day my editor had the rest of the journos join us at a cafe to welcome me to the team. That’s when I met Fiona. Fi. She’d been out on assignment and arrived late; the only seat left was right next to me. She was so natural and warm in the way she chatted with me. What was just polite small talk felt to me like an enormous show of generosity; like a light shining on me. She also reminded me of my childhood screen crush Toni Pearen. I was instantly taken with her.

Fi was a reporter but she also subedited a lot of articles. For months she corrected my dodgy apostrophes. Four months in and she’d had enough. After work one evening, when everyone else had left, she quietly ran through the rules of apostrophes with me – to save her own sanity and my dignity. What a woman, I thought.

Fi was a few years older than me; she’d lived and worked in the UK as a journalist. This was the height of sophistication to me. I was fascinated and enamoured with her. But I didn’t think she’d ever entertain the idea of dating a bloke like me; I was just a kid trying not to blow his big break with errant grammar and misguided affections.

Then spring rolled around, the jacarandas were out and Brisbane was awash in purple. Local band Powderfinger were just about to bring out one of the greatest albums of all time, Odyssey Number Five. As a perk of my shit-kicking job I was invited to the industry launch. There was only one person I knew who was a bigger Finger fan than me….

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/feb/23/the-moment-i-knew-i-thought-i-was-too-cool-for-love-my-rock-idol-knew-better

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