What’s up with me and the intimacy issues? It was only my third date with Barry (coffee at the Students Union) and I’d just told him I was crazy.

We met at an interdisciplinary postgraduate conference. He said he liked my talk on negation in language.

What he actually said was, ‘I didn’t understand your paper, not one jot of it.’

His field was psychology, not linguistics, so his joke meant he’d been paying attention. I may have already been in love. 

So why the rush to tell him about the alien in my brain?

‘An alien talks to you?’ he said.

‘Yeah, he took up residence as soon as I landed on my thesis topic,’ I said. 

‘Correlation is not causality,’ Barry pointed out. 

‘He keeps asking annoying questions about my topic. He says in his language there is no negation.’

‘There is no negation? Isn’t that a perfect example of negation?’

‘Well, what he really said is There’s only affirmation. But we were speaking English.’

‘I don’t think you’re crazy,’ Barry said. ‘I think you have a very smart brain who’s created a sparring partner to help bring your brilliant ideas even further. Or else you really are in communication with extraterrestrial intelligence, which you should see as a great privilege.’

He had me at I don’t think you’re crazy. 

‘The negation is the affirmation!’ exclaimed my alien companion, with a distracting Eureka yelp.

I ignored this, leaning closer toward my human companion. ‘Can I kiss you?’ I asked.

‘I don’t see why not,’ he said, and I melted into the negative space his negative clauses revealed.

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Would you like to know more about this story? I discuss it in Episode 97 of Structured Visions, ‘The intimacy of denial.’ You can also sign up to the Grammar for Dreamers newsletter to get monthly updates on the ideas that inspire my work.