I met Varuni on 11 November 1994. My band, Violent Femmes, were playing at a club in Baltimore called Hammerjacks. It was a typical greasy rock club.

While we were performing that night I noticed this incredibly beautiful woman staring at me the whole time. In my line of work, that’s not exactly unusual, but she really caught my attention. But I was on stage and I was kind of busy, so it wasn’t as though I could just invite her for a beer.

A few minutes after the show, she walks into the dressing room. Now, the mechanism by which this happened was that our soundman was out in the house. She had gone up to him and asked if he could get her CD signed, but he invited her backstage to meet us herself. He had no idea we’d been establishing eye contact the whole night.

We got chatting and after not too long Gordon, who sings in the band, asked for her number. She said: “I’m gonna give it to Brian and you can get it off him.” Her choice was pretty clear I guess.

The word “literally” gets thrown around way too much these days but I literally remember thinking to myself: “I could spend the rest of my life with this woman.” I don’t know if that was falling in love, or just an observation, but it was true.

So I said: “Why don’t we go out and have a cocktail or something?”

She had this little Honda Civic, so we got in and started driving to my hotel bar, but she was so nervous she drove up on the curb. We made it there alive, had a few drinks, exchanged numbers and left it at that.

At the time she was getting her PhD in entomology at the University of Maryland and I was a travelling rock musician living in Milwaukee, so I didn’t really think things would go much further. But she was so charming and amusing and vivacious and magnetic, and you just don’t meet people that exceptional very often.

We kept in touch, but really didn’t think about dating or anything that formal.

Then in 1995 she was offered a postdoc at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. She said: “I’m starting a new life in New York, I’ll be there for the next three years. What are you doing for the next three years?”

And I was just sitting there in Milwaukee and my life was pretty unsettled. I was looking for some direction and here she was, the most beautiful woman I ever met, saying why don’t you come and live with me in New York.

So I did: I packed up and moved to New York in 1996.

I was on the scene and she was in the world of science. All the guys she worked with thought she was crazy for giving this “uneducated” rock musician a chance. I do actually have a high school diploma, but the only time I’ve ever used it is so she could tell them I had it.

We’ve been together now for nearly 30 years and I think one of the reasons it’s worked is because of how devoted Varuni is. She’s a very modern woman, but she’s also old-fashioned in how she approaches relationships. She takes it very seriously. As a touring musician I had quite an extravagant love life until I met her, but she set such a good example to me about how I should behave.

In my life, music had always been the most important thing and then I met her and our relationship became the most important thing.

Music has never had to take a back seat, but it could. Varuni has taught me that devotion is crucial and the important thing is to be together – not what we are doing or where we’re doing it. Just as long as we take this relationship wherever we go and are solid with each other, we can do anything as individuals and support each other. And I guess that’s about enough.

• Brian Ritchie is the artistic director of Mona Foma, Mona Museum’s summer festival of music and art, running 15 February to 3 March 2024 in Hobart and Launceston, Tasmania

• This article was amended on 27 January 2024. Varuni Kulasekera has a PhD in entomology, rather than etymology as an earlier version said.