WE ARE A gay couple considering getting hitched. Many intimate relationships of course already come with this tradition of public affirmation: gifts and ribbons and cake and speeches follow solemn vows between a man and a woman, to the exclusion of all others, for life. For most, the social ideals of wedding and marriage are conflated as though they are one and the same. Other relationships, such as ours, tend to inch along in a linear fashion, unmarked by pomp, although the signifiers are clear to those who care to notice the detail.

There are certain delicious, subtle things about being a gay couple. Hands furtively held on the armrest in the cinema, or a covert brush against one another in the street. My partner and I, also named Steve, moved house from Melbourne’s Prahran to Sydney’s Darlinghurst three years ago and, in doing so, gained such liberties. Public affection between persons of matched sex is not the done thing in Chapel Street on a Saturday night. That is Oxford Street behaviour, on dedicated Mardi Gras evenings.