The reason why Vladimir Putin is the reason I have a girlfriend sounds strange, but it's definitely true.
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, a social club called the White Eagle Club in Balham, south London, opened its doors and became an aid hub.
A few weeks after opening, I decided to join hundreds of volunteers because, like many people, I wanted to help them and realized that Doomsday Scrolls only made me sad.
Before and after work, I go to help almost every day. A few weeks after I joined the White Eagle Appeal, it moved to a new location in an abandoned store on Broadway in Tutting.
In late March, a fellow volunteer threw a large box at my head.
Her name is Kamilla, she is a Russian volunteer, she is part of the sorting team, and then she hands the boxes and bags to our palletizing team for us to put next door.
While it doesn't sound romantic, it's not love at first sight. Camila and I both started volunteering at White Eagle because we both felt that it was better to do a little than nothing. Romance is the last thing we can think of.
What's more important is to keep pace as vans and trucks move in and out of White Eagle Appeal's Tutin's base to transport aid to a secondary loading dock in Ukraine or another part of London.
For a while, we didn't have a van to carry heavy loads, so a volunteer colleague and I filled the void with my mini clubman and a Ford van.
It was a long, busy day because, like many volunteers, I came for work, but even more amazingly.
As White Eagle grew, a community of volunteers began to form, in which friendship groups developed, and inevitably, romantic problems began to arise.
I really didn't think about falling in love with any of the volunteers before I was invited, it seemed like nothing more than terrible things could happen and the result was an awkward rebuilding of a promising friendship.
However, when I was invited, I confessed to my closest friends that objectively I found two people attractive, and out of those two, I would ask them out. I later found out that I was also an option when my girlfriend was asked the same question.
However, it wasn't until a random follow and a lamppost on Instagram that we really started talking.
When I saw that Camila had sent me a follow request, I was on vacation abroad with my friends. Although I later claimed that I waited about 10 minutes to reply, in reality, it was apparently only a matter of seconds.
We started chatting, went through flight cancellations, COVID, and a ruptured eardrum (all of which happened to me) and we finally had our first date in July 2022.
Since then, we've supported each other and had some chaotic times, some happy moments, and some completely weird moments, but despite all the chaos, we still spend most of our time laughing.
What's even better is that she even slowly got into the car; I've always been fascinated by motorsport and all things automobile, so it's great to be able to share that passion with others.