I’ll Be Whoever You Want Me to Be

David and Janice

Victoria, Canada

A girlfriend of Janice’s who she met doing a commercial said, “You should meet film Dave. Everyone knows him.” and Janice said, “I don’t know him.” “He’s having his Halloween party and you should come.” Several years ago David was known for his epic Halloween parties–the kind where the police show up a couple of times. Curious to meet him, Janice rode her bike over in the rain and crashed the party.

Janice showed up in a Rocky Horror Show costume looking a bit like Magenta, the maid of Frank-N-Furter and introduced herself to David. Janice thought David looked like David Bowie and she said “Are you David Bowie? “ He said, “No, but I’ll be whoever you want me to be.” This was the line that attracted Janice initially.  He was supposed to be Buddy Holly.  A couple of hours later, David just remembers watching Janice walk out the door and thought I need to find out how to get a hold of her.  Janice was thinking I met this lovely guy and never heard from him again for two months but there was a reason for that.

It took some sleuthing after the party to get in touch with Janice as his buddy-who was Janice’s friends’ partner, was suddenly quite protective of Janice. He was a casual acquaintance that David would go to night clubs with.  In order to get Janice’s contact information, he found himself heading out for dinner with him and basically being interviewed.  Tired of the scrutiny, David took a different approach and went to Facebook and looked through his buddy’s partner’s friends, found Janice and sent her a message.  A couple of months later they finally went out on their first date to ReBar—a vegetarian restaurant.  They connected right away on a few things art wise like opera and film and ended up going to the Victoria Film Festival together.

David arguably knew the second she walked into the party that Janice was the one and definitely as he watched her walk out the door of the party.  They are opposite in many ways—Janice being a yoga instructor and David being a self-professed, typical Type A personality—always on the go.  Janice has tried to get him to meditate and he can do it for about one thousandth of a second.  Despite their differences, they have an understanding of each other and get along well. 

Many years ago, Janice was trained in Yantra numerology.  Each person has a set of numbers that relates to their year and date of birth.  Although it is unusual, David and Janice had exactly the same numbers.  Having the same Life Path numbers means that they can readily understand each other and each other’s motivations.  Despite their matching numbers, it wasn’t until the snow came that Janice knew he was a keeper.  Shortly after they had started dating, Victoria was hit with snow that lasted for a few weeks which is unusual.   David said, “Don’t’ worry I’m not working til March. I have a four-wheel drive and I can drive you to your classes.” Any time she needed a ride, he gave her one.  The nature of working in the film industry sometimes means you have minimal work and then you are fully booked 7 days a week at other times.  This was somewhat worrisome to Janice but at the same time convenient that he had no problem being available to drive her.

Janice says the key to them working is their sense of humour.  Everyday he does something to make me laugh.

As soon as Janice stopped looking for someone and started really enjoying her own company, things fell into place, and she met David.  We both came into this with a good sense of ourselves and are quite independent.  Janice having lived by herself overseas for many years is comfortable with being by herself as David can be away shooting for long periods of time.  In the eight years they’ve been together, he’s been to Greece, Hawaii, Italy, Ireland, and England.  Since the pandemic they have been stuck with each other and that’s working out as well.  They don’t have wedding plans in the near future because “shacking up” is working for them. 

Janice joined David at the tail end of one shoot in England and spent a few days in London and then they went to Amsterdam for David’s birthday. Janice had spent some time scouting out a restaurant for his birthday and had booked a restaurant, months in advance.  Restaurants are like people though and some photograph better than others.  That was the case in this instance and what looked like a fancy place ended up being a small little lunch time café with the owner doing everything from hosting to cooking.  In all good relationships, if things don’t turn out exactly as planned you call it an “adventure” and then you move on and in this case find some delicious hot Dutch cooked food and maybe a piece of birthday cake. 

David said what made Janice and himself work was their friendship as well as the fact that they are both independent and can go their separate ways, neither of them being needy.  David believes that if you are in a relationship that isn’t working you need to get out. Don’t spend your life unhappy because as Sybil says to Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, “Was that my life?”  and he responds, “Yup. Sorry. Only the one.”

Broadcast Love wishes David and Janice many more adventures together.