A Love Story: Interview with TOM ARKELL
Tom Arkell is a psychopharmacologist whose research explores how drugs affect the brain and human behaviour. Tom has worked in Australia, the US and the Netherlands on studies exploring the effects of alcohol, cannabis and MDMA. Tom now leads a program of research that aims to better understand how medical cannabis impacts driving, cognition, and quality of life. He holds a BA (Psychology/Philsophy) and a PhD (Medicine) from the University of Sydney. In this intimate interview, Tom shares his emotions and vulnerabilities for his wife, Gabi.
Photography ANTONELLA MORELLI
Interview BEE MOHAMED
Words TOM ARKELL
I am Tom and I am sharing my story of how love entered my life on a MS word document. This is also the first time that I have ever expressed publicly about my wife that other people are going to read.
Interview with Bee Mohamed on June 3 2025
How did you meet your wife, and what memories do you have of the first time you met?
For a bit of context, I met Gabi in Buenos Aires on New Year’s Eve in 2011. They don’t know how to make pizza there, but the choripan is great and the statues are pink.
I remember that t-shirt, I remember that smile, I remember the sound of her voice, I remember her hair, I remember walking by her side, I remember thinking ok wow! I like this girl, qué hermosa.
She even held my beer for me when I had to pee and I couldn’t believe she was still there when I came back. That night in my mind is a finely woven tapestry.
It’s colourful but monochromatic, lysergic, surreal but visceral, and you have to squint to see some of the details.
How did you feel after you met her?
I don’t even know how to describe how I was feeling the next day. Elated? Was that a dream?
Like huh what the fuck just happened? Yeah, maybe that. They don’t call me eloquent for nothing. I mean we met for a night, skyped for a year, and then I was eating tacos with her in Brooklyn. We might have smoked a couple of doobers too.
How did this connection and falling in love with Gabi change your life?
Love is a winding path that has brought me immense joy, a lightness of being, revealed my weaknesses but also providing a sense of calmness in a world that can at times feel turbulent and difficult to make sense of.
Describe how the relationship has been and what the relationship means to you.
We’ve since travelled the seven seas (mainly via the air), from New to York to Rome to Tokyo and home. We’ve had so much fun, and so many adventures, and so many bowls of noodles!
Sometimes more than I think I deserve. I count my blessings when I think back over the time we have had together thus far.
Of course, it hasn’t all been easy. We’ve had our challenges, we’ve had some problems, and I know we will have plenty more. What relationship doesn’t? Even roses need pruning.
It’s funny how sometimes you think you’ve got it all figured out, and then yet again you realise you know absolutely fuck all, and you have so much more still to learn. It’s humbling if nothing else.
We’ve now been best friends for 13 years and I know we always will be. There is little more I am sure of in this world. What I see in the future is more adventure, more late-night meals, more being responsibly irresponsible, more being wrong, learning to listen better, and learning to understand more. I don’t expect everything to go to plan, but I promise to be your best advocate, and your number one fan.
I’ve learned from you how to be more tolerant, how to get better at speaking about what’s going on in my head, how to worry less (at least a little bit less), how to be more present, and how to not take things too seriously. These are truly great gifts to have received.
We often say that we started as best friends, and I would add that everything else is a bonus.
With lots of love from me to you, Gabi.
