Winter is Coming
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Doctor Who: How my favorite Doctor and writer helped me to find true love

By James Aggas

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The Eighth Doctor has been a favorite of mine for a very long time. But in recent years, hes also helped to be a big part of my life.

(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.

Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)

In celebration of one of the most romantic days of the year, here’s a story of how my fandom of Doctor Who – particularly the Eighth Doctor and the messed up mind of Robert Shearman – brought me to the love of my life.

It’s Valentine’s Day, and to celebrate, I’ve decided to write about something a little more personal. Specifically, it’s about how Doctor Who, a little TV series that I’ve been a big fan of for most of my life, brought me to the love of my life.

It was a little while before Christmas 2017, just a matter of weeks before Capaldi’s final episode. Along with writing for the site, I was also enjoying discussing the show with friends both off and online.

In one of the Facebook groups I joined, I continually noticed someone else commenting on a lot of the same posts that I did. Specifically, posts regarding the Eighth Doctor, whether it was about the TV movie, the minisode The Night of the Doctor or, best of all, his many, many audios and how fantastic he is in all of them.

Now, it’s rare to find another fan of the Eighth Doctor. It’s even rarer to find one who was, frankly, as passionate about the character as I was. So I thought it was worth adding her as a friend. Now, keep in mind, the only reason I added her was just to have one more person to discuss Doctor Who with.

That’s what I genuinely thought. I certainly wasn’t interested in a new relationship, especially a long distance one. I had done it before, and it always inevitably came to the same thing: it just wasn’t worth the distance. So I certainly wasn’t interested in heading into a brand new one.

It’s funny how life can throw its own plans at you when you least expect it.

Neverland was just one of many Eighth Doctor stories that me and my girlfriend initially discussed. But we also talked about a great deal more…

(Image credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

From a sentence to pages

After accepting my friend request, I thought it was worth sending her a hello message. If she didn’t reply back, I wouldn’t have been surprised. I was, quite frankly, a random stranger on the internet.

But she responded back. And it wasn’t a message telling me not to bother her ever again. She was really nice and easy to chat to. And the more we chatted, the more we realized we had a lot to chat about. While initially, we started with just a couple of sentences, we then started sending paragraphs. Then multiple paragraphs. Then the equivalent of entire pages. Or more.

Funny thing was, while we got chatting about the Eighth Doctor initially, that quickly got swamped by everything else we had in common. By everything else we found genuinely interesting about the other. It wasn’t long before I realized that I was literally sending her multiple pages each day, and I suddenly began to suspect that, whether I wanted another relationship or not, I might have started to like her.

And I honestly didn’t want to, not at first, anyway. Especially as she seemed so perfect for me that there was no way she could feel the same way. (The fact that she was also sending me page length messages several times a day was of course irrelevant.)

A key moment that really pushed our relationship forward was helped by Doctor Who writer Robert Shearman (even though he has no idea).

(Image credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

How Robert Shearman fits in

The moment I knew that I liked her – and, in fact, gained some hope that she might have liked me too – was when we were talking about the writer Robert Shearman. We both agreed that, based on The Chimes of Midnight and certainly based on Scherzo, that he was clearly messed up in many ways. (Like, seriously: only Robert Shearman could make a kiss between the Doctor and his companion absolutely horrifying!) We also agreed that he was one of our favorite Doctor Who writers ever.

It was then that I was suddenly reminded of a very proud moment. A year or so before I started writing for Doctor Who Watch, I wrote an article on tumblr that detailed 5 of my favorite things that I loved about the Eighth Doctor. I went into quite some detail on his character development, his strong sense of morality, how that morality was challenged and of course, Paul McGann himself.

That article got a nice little response on tumblr, but I was especially pleased when Robert Shearman himself shared the article, and commented that he liked it. Naturally, this seemed like a natural thing to bring up and boast about during our conversation.

However, her response was, I must admit, not quite what I expected. She wasn’t impressed by Robert Shearman sharing the article. Instead, this was her response:

"Holy [shucks], you wrote that?!"

Never in a million years did I expect that. To get recognized for a little article that I had written years ago. And not even an article that I had written for the site, either. And she made it very clear just how much she loved it. It was an incredible feeling. Not just for being admired by someone for my writing. But especially that I was being admired by her.

I always knew that my fandom would always be a big part of my life. But I never knew how big.

(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.

Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)

What happened next

We kept on trying to keep it friendly after that, but it didn’t work. It became clearer and clearer, both to each other and to ourselves, that we really liked each other. And not just in an online crush kind of sense. The amount we were talking every single day, and the amount we openly admired each other, made it too obvious.

Eventually, I admitted that I really liked her. Now, you may imagine that this would’ve been difficult and awkward for me. Especially as we had become really great friends by that point. And I must admit, there have been times in the past when it was difficult to admit that to someone.

But this was different. Because this time, it felt like we were somehow a couple already and were just trying to avoid accepting it. When I told her, she told me she liked me too.

Where we are now

More from Winter is Coming

We’ve met each other in person twice already, each of us having a fantastic time. (Also, each of us being hugely relieved that neither of us was catfishing the other the whole time!)

As I write this while we’re once again reunited for Valentine’s Day, I think about how Doctor Who has influenced my life, in so many ways. It’s helped me to make so many friends, and even lead me to writing for this excellent website!

But, I will be honest, I never thought it would help me find romance. And I never thought I’d find someone so perfect for me that our shared Eighth Doctor fandom is only the tiniest part of it. Once again, it’s funny how something as simple as a TV show can change your life.

So, this article is for you, my love. (And for anyone who loves Doctor Who and isn’t put off by romance, but mostly you.)

Next. Gallifrey review: Emancipation brings the Doctor Who spin-off back to politics. dark

(Also, cheers to Robert Shearman. Seriously, I owe you one!)

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