The moment I knew: He said he was having a midlife crisis – I saw a man willing to face his fears

When David and I met, we’d both recently come out of long-term relationships and had our lives reorganised by the reality of mortality. He’d survived two strokes and had learned how to walk and talk again. I’d been diagnosed HIV positive at 21, five years earlier.

In early 2018 I was in my mid-20s, living in Sydney, and had just returned to dancing and performing after a three-year hiatus.

I joined the dating apps seeking affirmation that I could be desired again, and explicitly stated my HIV status on my profile.

Related: The moment I knew: When he saw my unkempt hovel, he was so nonjudgmental

Because my previous partners had been dance or theatre people, I had made a soft rule to not date within the industry. I broke that rule with David, although I didn’t realise it at the start of our first date.

That night, we drank two bottles of wine in his apartment and talked for hours. We covered everything from Netflix shows to movies we’d seen – intentionally avoiding talking about work. It wasn’t until I got up to go to the bathroom that I noticed the posters lining the wall. Productions he had worked on as a stage manager: Priscilla, Strictly Ballroom, West Side Story.

Standing in the bathroom, I splashed my face with water and stared in the mirror. Do I stay or do I go? The answer came easily. As far as online dating goes, he was really, really lovely. I stayed the night.

We had second and third dates, over coffee and cheap Thai meals. As we got to know each other, David opened up about his health and the toll of working in a demanding industry in an even more demanding role.

On our fourth date, he told me he was having a midlife crisis. It was golden hour, when the sun illuminates the whole of Sydney’s King Street, making the neighbourhood glow amber. He looked at me and said: you’ve caught me at a very interesting time in my life.

Following his two strokes, he was planning to quit his stage manager job and holiday in London to figure himself out. He could feel himself slowing down, not moving at the speed the show needed. It was a terrifying prospect for him. He’d worked so hard in his dream career, and now he was reassessing his life.

I held my tongue; we didn’t know each other that well yet, but I could feel his sincerity. I looked at him in that light, with the sun hitting his glasses, and his little Clark Kent curl, and thought: here is a man who is afraid, but is willing to face his fears head-on. And the realisation hit me: I’m in love with this man.

Given David literally had to learn to walk and talk again after his strokes, and I was so young when I had received the diagnosis that historically was a death sentence, both our minds were focused on what really mattered.

I told him to go to London but not to stop messaging me, because I wasn’t planning to stop messaging him. I ended up affectionately pestering him every day of his trip.

Now David and I are coming up on nine years together. We bought an apartment in Sydney’s inner west and we share a dog, our Appa.

We are nesting partners, polyamorous and open in our relationship. We’ve always believed that the other has so much to share with the world, and they deserve everything the world has to offer. Nothing should stand in the way of that – including each other. It works for us.

When we say “I love you” it’s always with a capital Y. It means all of you. Every version, every state, every muted hue or intense shade when you challenge me, when you infuriate me, I choose to still love you. We’ve practised our whole relationship.

When I think back to our first date, there was no master plan. We were both present, meeting each other as we were, at difficult times in our lives, open to learning how to love each other.

• Jeremy Lloyd is movement director for the Fruit Box theatre production of Cruise, which runs at Theatre Works in St Kilda, Melbourne from 11–21 November