Just got done talking to the girl I was completely, totally madly in love with in High School:
You carry these flames to your grave, don’t you?
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.
Only Democrats have agency, apparently.
Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.
The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.
Good lord, these people are nuts.
Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.
Let there be snark.
Damn right I heard that as a threat.
The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.
rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.
Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.
Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.
if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.
Giving up is unforgivable.
The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.
Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.
Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.
Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.
Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.
This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.
Impressively dumb. Congratulations.
Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?
Wag
I’m friends on FB with mine.
jayboat
Dude, I hope you aren’t into the red wine.
hitchhiker
If you’re really lucky, yes. The boy I loved — for his hilarious soul, his strange taste in clothes, his refusal to be like anybody else — turned out to be gay. AIDS got him before we both turned 35, such a long, long time ago.
Rammalamadingdong
My flame contacted me in 2009. Got married last year. To the grave absolutely.
Punchy
So we can now assume yer hetereosexy and in need to 1) go back to HS, or 2) find a time machine. Good luck yo.
Crusty Dem
Or sometimes you find out via Facebook that she’s a heartless, stupid, über-wingnut. Then you wonder what the hell you were ever thinking in the first place (answer: that she was pretty and you were 15).
Hill Dweller
@Crusty Dem: Or you can date and ultimately live with her after high school. The shine quickly wears off, leaving you to wonder what the hell were you thinking.
divF
I went to a boys’ high school, and have no regrets nor even wistful remembrances. A lot of penny-a-point hearts games before classes started in the morning, though.
Robin G.
The first love leaves fingerprints.
jayjaybear
@Robin G.: @Robin G.:
Or scars.
Denali
that is so sweet, John Cole.
redshirt
Phoebe Cates is not walking through that door.
Redshift
I never let go of mine. No regrets.
Poopyman
Mine died of breast cancer last year, which I found out a few months ago. Only 58. (“Only”?) Man, that makes you think.
AnonPhenom
Not to the grave. Just ’till your early 50s. And no, I don’t know why.
divF
@redshirt:
Phoebe Cates, from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”
Rand Careaga
The first love indeed leaves fingerprints. Mine led to a marriage that effectively ended over a quarter of a century ago, and I’ve moved on to another and more rewarding marriage, but I have to say that not a single day has passed since 1969 that I haven’t thought of her. Not one.
Maude
We need to show gratitude. There’s no picture of Tunch. He had to shave the rear area.
RobertDSC-PowerMac 466
Mine went on to get two masters degrees and is a high-end hospital big shot. She got married last year. Some of the pics from the wedding were to die for.
She crosses my mind every now and then. There have been others, but none like her. There was just something about her that always killed me.
Poopyman
And with a post title like that, maybe this should have been the video to post.
Felonius Monk
Me thinks John is a marshmallow.
redshirt
You gonna get with her, Cole? Or is that out of the question?
Given the bachelor status, I wonder if John has ever moved on.
I speak from experience!
Fwiffo
Got re-introduced to an old high school flame on Facebook, 17 years after graduation. She’s still single. And then stuff happened…
Brachiator
Not always. I felt that I had outgrown my high school flame by my second semester in college. By then, I couldn’t imagine what I had ever seen in her.
Years later, I ran into her at a mall. She was with a guy who looked a lot like me. This was very strange, but that’s another story for another day.
My college sweetheart? Now, that’s another matter. Even though she ended up marrying one of my best friends, she still is one of the greatest women I have ever known.
Still, I lack the nostalgia and regrets gene. One of my best friends is a woman I have known since Junior High School, but I generally abhor Facebook crap, and have no great desire to revisit the past.
The Thin Black Duke
Love Sinks.
Especially the first time, when you’re young and dumb and don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.
And regret whacks you in the head when you’re sitting alone in a bar at stupid o’clock in the a.m.
Oh yeah, I still miss her.
John M. Burt
In my experience, yes, that sort of relationship (even if it’s entirely in your head) stays with you, for the same reason that your parents stay with you. As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.
Mine was a Lesbian. We stayed in touch for years thereafter, as I went through relationships with women and she went through relationships with women and men. She and I were even involved for a short time, and I went from that relationship greatly enriched (I hope she was, at least, not too greatly annoyed or inconvenienced). Throughout, I said and did various offensive and stupid things that would have ended most friendships, but she forgave me.
I’d like to think that we’d have seen more of each other over the last 35 years if we’d spent more of them in the same time zone, but maybe not.
But there will always be a corner of my heart that bears her mark, and I continue to be enriched by that.
Ira-NY
No. Sitting next her.
vheidi
@The Thin Black Duke: Emmy Lou & Gram?
jharp
You carry these flames to your grave, don’t you?
Captain Goto
@AnonPhenom: yeah, pretty much.
I had it bad for the Jewish girl I lost my cherry to, and I could feel it after my first marriage went to shit–I attended her Dad’s funeral, and even with her hubby by her side I was thinking, just say the word and I’ll be on it.
About four years later, the shoe was on the other foot when she came to my Dad’s wake, and after ten minutes I was wondering what I ever saw in her. Seriously, I was seeing more maturity in my own 14-year-old daughter, and I just couldn’t imagine being with someone less mature than my own kid.
There was no one else in my past that I ever was that hot for, and since then I haven’t felt that nostalgia jones–at least not for any woman.
+1
RedKitten
It all depends…on FB, I got to touch base with the guy who I had a wild crush on from Grade 4 up through Grade 12. I wasn’t holding a torch at all, but it was nice to see how he was doing — happy, lovely wife, cute kids. It actually humanized him a lot for me, and just kind of took all of the mystique away, allowing me to see him as just another guy.
On the other side of things, I don’t know about guys, but I think that most every girl has a hidden wish to be the one that someone never quite got over (in a non-creepy, non-obsessive way, of course…)
Alias Undercover
I’ve reconnected with two exes via Facebook. One…well, let’s say that the years have not been kind, plus, she’s married. One’s still hot, but she’s become a wingnut and reminds me every day why we broke up.
Yutsano
My Canadian ex. I’ve mostly moved on, but I admit part of me still thinks about that big gruff defenceman every now and again. I’m totally out of contact with him however.
cmorenc
When pining for the girl you had a mad crush on back in high school, college, or your single 20s, it somehow doesn’t help at all to think of the likelihood you’re the one some other girl had a mad crush on back then, who still pines for you some nights sitting alone at stupid o’clock.
pete
My aunt had a high-school boyfriend that I knew about because my dad (2 years younger) used to cover for her after school, and told us because he knew we’d find it hilarious, her being a very strait-laced old headmistress. After her husband died, at a ripe old age, she got this letter, “Are you the Janet who …?” And, yes, in their mid-70s, they began over after a 60-year hiatus. He moved in and we teased her about getting married. “What?” she said, “And lose my pension?” They had a fine few years together.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
To quote WC Fields: “It was a woman who drove me to drink. I never did have the courtesy to thank her.”
And, yep, kinda/sorta had one of those, a few years out of high school, though (I was 20, 21, something like that). Haunted me a long time after (mamas, don’t let your boys grow up to be rebound boyfriends), but I eventually shook her, albeit not completely till after my first marriage. Found her on FB a couple years ago, but haven’t seen/felt the need to drop her a line. She’s married, happy, has kids. I’m remarried, happy, so glad I got “fixed” to never have to deal with kids (no offense to the breeders, I just didn’t get that gene [although I love all my kitties like they were offspring]). =o ) Thankfully, she’s kept the lefty views she had back in the day (I recall her going off against Jerry Falwell – this was in the days of the Reagan admin) – if I’d found out she’d turned wingnut, I’d feel like I’d betrayed the cause, or somesuch.
Bill Hicks
Eww jk. Anybody got the inside scoop on the coming storm? It seems there has been horrible predictiveness and now it is looking bad ass.
burnspbesq
Every time I have to go to DC for work, I’m tempted to reach out. The two years that I was bi-coastal, with a grade-school age kid, and working in DC were excruciating.
Maybe the next time I get ACC Tournament tickets (she’s a Wake Forest grad).
Brachiator
@RedKitten:
This makes a certain sense. Actually, a great deal of sense. But isn’t this one of those Women’s Club things that you are not supposed to reveal?
RedKitten
@Brachiator: Probably. Oh well…
Alison
@RedKitten:
Yeaaaaaaahh, that bolded part is key. I SPEAK FROM EXPERIENCE. Someone not getting over you in an obsessive way is zero fun and is in fact horrible. Knowing that the only way someone will ever actually stop trying to force their way back into your life is when one of you dies is really fucking awful, and I hate that this sort of thing is painted as being charming or sweet in our pop culture.
Ahem. TMI maybe but whatev.
Jon
My college girlfriend still makes me drink sometimes. Facebook friends. She was totlally nuts, but just burned me up like fuel. To the grave.
Gozer
I s’pose, in the sense that if I still carried such a flame my Mrs. would see to it that I had an early grave.
EDIT (and OT): For any of you in the Philly/S. Jersey area, I’d highly recommend Han Dynasty for some pretty bad-ass Szechuan cuisine…Esp the dry pepper style and the pork belly appetizer. Just make sure to have plenty of beer/tea to put out the fire.
Gretchen
Oh dear. I’m looking at this from the other side. My daughter just broke up with her 3-year college boyfriend because he always wanted to do what he wanted to do, with his friends, and went off on a long trip after college graduation. She broke up with him, and now he’s calling her, crying and begging her to give it one more chance, and she’s done. I loved the guy – he’s a sweet kid whose nice parents live near us, and I could totally see him happily driving a minivan full of 8 year olds to the zoo and coaching soccer, and I thought he’d be a good husband, but she didn’t see it that way. He’s not moving on, is in a bad way, and I hate to see someone I’m fond of hurting and crying. I’m hoping he’ll find someone else who’s better for him, but now you’re all telling me he’ll still be thinking of her 40 years from now.
Other daughter broke up with her boyfriend of 7th grade -college graduation the week after they graduated because he didn’t bother to look for a job in our hometown knowing she had found one. He said she could move to California or forget it. He started with a new girlfriend the same week, totalled his car and 3 others (empty and parked, thankfully) in a DUI, and landed in Betty Ford. She was well out of that one. She started with a med student, and then was accepted to an Ivy League grad school. He encouraged her to go, but said he wouldn’t do long distance. He sat up with her the night before she left, and then said really, it’s over, just before she left, so she started for the airport in tears. And spent the next night with his old girlfriend, which happened to be my girl’s birthday. I hope both those guys spend the next 50 years regretting letting her go. But the first guy, I really hope he meets his perfect match. Love stinks, sometimes.
Beauzeaux
During high school I pined for Oscar Levant. Didn’t get over that for a long time.
magurakurin
@Felonius Monk:
well, yeah. I mean anyone who links to the J. Geils Band.
ruemara
Wow. No. Right now, I’m not sure what convinced me to ever be in love with anyone and if that’s ever going to be different in the future. I miss companionship and lord knows, with the scary health issues, it would be nice not to go like my cuz this year and die and not be found for a week, but I have no idea who or what will inspire passion in me. I think I gave too much out in the past decade with nothing back. Honestly, I wish I had the experience you’re talking about and if I had, i wish I could recall it.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
Come to think of it, my dad has had this problem with my mom, who’d met in high school.
They divorced when I was 4 — back in 1968. He kept in touch with me here and there over the years, but his second wife was (is) a stinker and total deal-breaker for me. I dropped outta sight some 20+ years ago and thought that was that, but then last summer he had someone scout me out on the internet (he’s in his 70s, so gotta cut him slack on his google-fu). Turns out when I had to inform him my mom passed a few years ago, it did a number on him. Seems my mom had a special place in his heart that wife #2 wasn’t (isn’t) big enough to fill.
I guess the lesson is, if “the big one” gets away when you’re young, it helps — to the extent that you can have a say in such a thing — to be sure you marry really effin well down the road to shake out the ghosts.
Comrade Mary
The guy I had a crush on from grade 7 through grade 9 showed up as my parish priest a few years ago. I went into the church once (it did not burst into flame from my mere presence) but chickened out on approaching him while staring at him as much as I could. He had aged well, but he was a lot shorter than I had thought he should be, maybe 5’7 or 5’8. He had been a lot taller than me in high school, but then, I barely made it to 5’1 by the time I turned 16.
Brachiator
@Beauzeaux:
One of my heroes:
“What do you do for exercise?”
“I stumble, and then I fall into a coma.”
Oscar Levant on Jack Paar
palolololo
There were two whose mark is indelible. One during junior and senior year of HS. Then off we went to college. And the love of my frosh year was totally different. 40-some years later, they’re still in my life. We still talk music and life. No what-ifs allowed. I’m sure they’re happier as it worked out. But I would have loved to have tried having a life. But we were all too young. Thank the FSM.
Narcissus
This blog is depressing.
Jeff Spender
I’ve had too many experiences with unrequited love to be anything but bitter at this point. I’m everyone’s best friend. Can’t seem to ever get past that.
I think I sound like an asshole right now. But it takes its toll. I don’t hold anything against them–I just wonder if there is anyone out there for me.
The prophet Nostradumbass
“Centerfold” and “Freeze Frame” were huge hits back when I was, ugh, a sophomore in high school.
Ruckus
@ruemara:
Yep.
Ruckus
@Comrade Mary:
it did not burst into flame from my mere presence
So you’ve had an interesting life so far.
The Moar You Know
Yes, but maybe not in the sense you’re thinking of. Mine found me 27 years after the last time I saw her, senior year of high school. Neither of us had ever been married or had kids.
We’ve been very happily married for almost three years now.
@Rammalamadingdong: Holy shit, another one. 2009 for me too. Way to go!
James E Powell
The flame I had two years after high school burned so bright, so hot that all previous flames were rendered into vague memories of fleeting attraction.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@James E Powell: The summer after my then Big Kahuna got away, I saw Woody Allen’s newly-released Purple Rose of Cairo. Given the state of my pining at the time, and the utterly devastating end to that movie, I’d have to guess that if my heart didn’t succumb to swift and terrible necrosis then and there, it must be made of pretty tough stuff.
@Narcissus:
And yer point is…
=o )
Brachiator
Absolutely true story:
A friend is a social worker who used to run in radical circles. One of her friends was this ultra radical, an intense, brooding type. At a party I once overheard two women talking about him. One said, “Oh, did he invite you to his apartment? You must be special. He doesn’t do that with everyone.”
He was the designated disciple of some old school radical. As part of his duties, he moved to the Mid West and met the woman who was the love of his life. One night, cuddling, they talked about their first loves. His new love mentioned the man who had taken her virginity in college, when she was a wild, free spirit, the one she always remembered.
He said, wait a minute, what was that name, again? He called my friend and asked, “Your friend, Brachiator, did he go to school on the East Coast? Did he ever know a woman named YY?”
My friend called me and asked, “Did you ever know a woman named YY?”
I said, “Uh, yeah. Why do you ask?”
This was a strange bit of serendipity. The two are still together. I do not keep in touch.
jwb
@Narcissus: just wait until we get back to politics tomorrow–that will be depressing.
greennotGreen
@ruemara: I hear ya. I’ve had such bad taste in men my entire life that living alone has been a much happier option. But sometimes it would nice to have someone to share an experience with, and yes,with my current health situation, if my 89 yo mother weren’t alive and thoroughly competent, I would be in a world of hurt.
wasabi gasp
Öykü Gürman – Bırak Güneş Yüzüne Değsin
BruinKid
I’m friends on Facebook with my elementary school crush; she’s married with kids now. My middle school crush moved away and turned out to be a grade A right-winger who’s a proud member of the NRA. My high school crush later came out as a lesbian.
:-|
greennotGreen
@Brachiator: Another true story, somewhat related: Around the time of my divorce, I fell in love with a young man who I too late found out was gay. We remained friends but it didn’t do great things for my self-esteem, hanging out with a guy I loved who had zip desire for me. So then, one morning after work, a male coworker asked me if I wanted to go get something to eat. We went to IHOP where he told me he was tripping. Then we went for a drive in the park at which time he told me about all the sexual fantasies he’d had about me. In retrospect, it sounds threatening, but it really wasn’t. There was just this guy who thought I was hot, which was great for my battered self-esteem. But I wasn’t interested in a relationship at the time, and I felt awkward afterwards, so no more meals at IHOP or drives in the park.
Come to think of it, the guy looked a lot like John Cole.
wasabi gasp
Bachi da Pietra – Dragamine
TenguPhule
Dr. Who Christmas Special. Chekov Guns Firing like Battlship Broadsides.
John of Indiana
@jayjaybear: Or both…
wasabi gasp
La Danse du Chien – Underground
Laertes
That’s funny. I just got done talking to the girl I was completely, totally, madly in love with two years ago. Year and a half since we last spoke, and I texted her out of nowhere today. Didn’t expect to hear back from her, but I did.
And yes, we’ll carry those flames to our graves. I’m about your age, and I remember well The Ones That Got Away, the One from two years ago and the One from fifteen years ago and there’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll never stop carrying those flames.
Suzanne
A friend and I were discussing this the other night. She told me that she carried a torch for a mutual classmate for YEARS in school (call him Sam), but that she gave up and she got a different boyfriend our senior year. Apparently Sam wrote in her senior yearbook, “I love you,” which she thought was a joke. She ended up marrying her boyfriend, who was and is a dickhead, and they’re always struggling to make ends meet, and he cheated on her, and attempted to do so with me. She invited Sam to the wedding, but he didn’t go. Fast forward a few years—Sam is now on the board of the Federal Reserve and has a PhD and a beautiful wife. My friend is pissed.
wasabi gasp
Dalida – Flamenco
wasabi gasp
Saccharine Trust – A Human Certainty
Humanities Grad
My first real crush still has a very tight grip on my heart–which is a good thing, seeing as how we’ve now been married for going on 15 years. If we couldn’t stand one another now, things would get…awkward.
We dated in high school, went our separate ways when we were both in college, but kept in touch. A few years later, we got together to commiserate after both of us had experienced spectacular crash-and-burn relationship failures. And then, apparently, both of us decided, “What the hell, why not?”
I guess we’re proof that rebound relationships can work.
danielx
That whole bit about how t’is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” is a crock of shit, given the scars and regrets that lost love leaves behind. You don’t get over the first one completely – ever – in my less than humble opinion.
That being said, no less than six of my friends have turned into three couples thirty to forty years after high school – all went to school together, went our separate ways, went through one or two marriages, encountered each other decades later, fell in love and have gotten married (2 out of 3) or are planning to get married. It is sort of weird to see friends in their forties/fifties acting like they’re in high school (I say with some envy).
Joel
Happily married and do not regret one bit that its one of the 2 flames preceding. Relieved, in fact.
PsiFighter37
I used to do this a lot, and it sucked. So I prefer to deal with what is, as opposed to what could have been and never was/will be, so that’s that.
jon
I’ve never fallen out of love in my life.
Makes love a very special pain in the ass sometimes, but still worth it.
Nina
My first real crush killed himself on my 16th birthday. It made life very very strange for many years. I’m still not sure I’m completely over it. Birthdays are difficult for me. I used to run into his brother a lot, less in recent years. There was always an unspoken sadness around him.
I’m facebook friends with my second crush. He lives states away, has a disabled kid, and a ruthlessly normal life.
Cassidy
I’m friends [in RL and FB] with my first “real” girlfriend from high school. It was intense and awkward in that HS way. I also went to her wedding. She’s still married and has kids and leads an interesting life. She was definitely my first love, but I never pine for her.
The first girl I fell in love with, though? Married her in 1999 and four kids later, kissed her before I left for work this morning.
The Other Bob
I have two x girlfriends from high school who have “friended” me on FB. It seems kinda creepy to friend someone and then never even say “hi”. By friending them I think I just gave permission to e-stalk me?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Alias Undercover:
This describes me only it’s one person: 3 kids, 33 years haven’t been kind to her and she’s a massive wingnut. She friended me on FB, we swapped some posts, all benign but when she started posting a crapload of Faux “News” wingnutty bullshit daily, she got hid.
That squashes whatever flame there might have been. That and being happily married to the same woman for almost 30 years now.
brendancalling
I’m friends with the first woman I loved, although it was a hard road to get there after the breakup.
OTOH, I’m going to be recovering from my most recent split-up for a long time. We were together 7 years, and it ended ugly and abruptly a week before Labor Day this year. I’m moving on and have met a wonderful girl, but it stings like a motherfucker sometimes.
Dan
Back when I was in 9th grade I had a huge crush on this girl. Years later, we became facebook friends and eventually she revealed that she, too, had a crush on me in 9th grade. Now, we were both single at the time, and she only lived 4 hours away, so I drove up to see her and…well…you get the idea.
Of course, it didn’t last – it was a one-time (well, three or four times, actually) thing but we have remained close friends. And there have been times when we have both needed close friends of late. So, on a whole, the reconnection, while it didn’t lead to any lasting romantic thing, turned into a very valuable friendship.
Bottom line is I would have carried the torch to my grave, but now – instead of a torch – I have a good friend.
kd bart
“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter–tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning– So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Del
My first love will always have a piece of my heart, even if I was only a phase for her. In a way I should thank her, because after our breakup I decided to move away for college and met the most beautiful and carefree spirit I’ve ever known. We’ve been together for eight years now but I still, occasionally, raise a toast to Emily at the bar. I never want to see her again but I’m thankful for where she sent me in life.
FormerSwingVoter
On one hand, yeah, I get it. I still occasionally (rarely) pine for my old high school sweetheart, for reasons that completely elude me.
On the other hand, the woman I’d been with for twelve years left me earlier this year for her own old eighth-grade sweetheart, who she’d reconnected with on Facebook and been chatting with for all of two weeks.
I think about her more than the old high school flame now. Every day, really. Even though I know damn well she doesn’t deserve the brainwaves.
Quinne
First true love was a best friend and totally unrequited. I’m still not entirely over him, even after he married my other best friend. Ouch. I moved on and married, but now I’m unmarried and think about him a lot, though no longer romantically. There’s a new beau for me, and I’m hopeful.
punkdavid
Wanna know something weird? My high school crush was recently divorced, and her ex posted here on BJ a couple times about his break up. I only know this because I’m quite an excellent cyber-stalker.
I haven’t seen or spoken to her in nearly 20 years, but we did exchange a few emails in 2003 when she was a married mom and I was expecting my first.
Funny thing is that for various reasons, mostly bad timing, we never were an item. That’s the part that still rats me up inside sometimes. I’d like to be friends, but only if she contacts me…
punkdavid
Wanna know something weird? My high school crush was recently divorced, and her ex posted here on BJ a couple times about his break up. I only know this because I’m quite an excellent cyber-stalker.
I haven’t seen or spoken to her in nearly 20 years, but we did exchange a few emails in 2003 when she was a married mom and I was expecting my first.
Funny thing is that for various reasons, mostly bad timing, we never were an item. That’s the part that still rats me up inside sometimes. I’d like to be friends, but only if she contacts me…
AnnieJo
I’m happily married to the love of my life, coming up on 20 years now, but I didn’t meet him till after college. Meanwhile, the years haven’t been kind to my first high-school crush. We were friends and quiz-team teammates, but oh how I pined for him at the time! He’s divorced and remarried now, struggled with mental illness, survived non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Facebook friends with both him and his first wife. A couple years ago he posted a memory of our one was-it-a-date-or-wasn’t-it. I never knew he’d perceived it like that too… Startling, the memory rush of how it had felt back then. No, one doesn’t forget.
Tony the Wonderhorse
Yes but why not give us a first name?
I’ll give you the entire one, Kristin Mary Cady
Hi dream girl, I hope you are well :-)
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
One of G’s employees reconnected with his high school girlfriend 30 years later. Turns out she’s a total psycho who stalks the women at G’s office because she’s convinced they’re all sleeping with her mid-50ish husband.
Be careful what you wish for.
Neldob
I had the sweetest boyfriend in hs and wow! could he cook! To this day that’s my first question about a man, can he cook. Ahhh, nice stroll down memory lane.
tworivers
I wouldn’t say I miss or still pine for my high school crush (whom I was deathly afraid of talking to). It’s more that I miss that feeling of being totally ga-ga over somebody. I had that feeling with a couple of girlfriends in college.
I never had that feeling completely with my ex-wife, which, if I had had more presence of mind back in the late 90’s, should have been a red flag (and should have made me think twice about proposing to her). We definitely had a puppy love stage early on, but I don’t remember ever having that totally head over heels feeling with her.
Dating in your 40’s is very weird. For the most part, people in their 40’s know who they are, know what they like, and have been around the block a few times and are oftentimes jaded and/or guarded as a result. I’m no different in that regard – I’m definitely a bit jaded and a bit guarded now. I kind of wish I could shed some of this, and get back to that unguarded, open-souled (if that’s not too hippy-ish a word) approach to relationships I had in my late teens/early twenties.
WAY more than you all needed to know, but thereyouhaveit.
Chris
Weird that this topic came up now. I just had the weird experience of my college girlfriend, who I loved like crazy but made life pretty awful before it ended, and was in fact enough of a self-serving bitch that I was able to not really get over it but know well enough not to want to go near it ever again, or ever have her anywhere near my life, get in touch and facebook friend one of my old soul brother pals, who was best man at my wedding and is basically part of a circle of my family.
I find myself just really unjustifiably angry that she would insert herself anywhere near me (this friend was all part of our intermeshed family but not really her friend beyond that). Totally unreasonable reaction, which is a tell how 1) i didn’t really get over how strongly I felt about her positively or 2) how strongly I felt about how unfair, weak, and horrible she was to me in the extended way to being over, rather than just us both saying “nice being college sweethearts, lets move on) at the end of it.
In truth, I can see how we were both going to have some hard times on the way to moving into adult life, and not much chance of it working anyway. So I can only say cest la vie.
I’m in mid forties now, so we are talking 20 years .
But i know if I were the guy who facebook friended her sister, or her friends if she had any at the time, I would be the weird guy looking backwards. Her sister once called me and said “my sister would kill me if she knew I called you”. So, even though I was like a brother to her, I never ever let myself be anywhere near her life.
Not sure how I’m supposed to take this one, or if I’m just supposed to think its a normal act. We are all spread over the country, I live in London now, this friend is in LA, its not like she was part of our extended lives over the years at all.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
Yes, it is true. My first true love was one of my best friends in High School. He didn’t feel the same about me. I didn’t open myself to truly loving someone again until I was in my late 30’s and that didn’t work. Now I’m in a relationship where I might be way, way, way out on a limb. But I’ll live if it doesn’t work out because I did that very first time and I’m all the stronger for it. When I was young I never understood Tennyson’s famous quote, ‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all’. At 42 I finally get it. I am, obviously, a REALLY slow learner and it often sucks. I’m an academic genius but a complete and utter moron when it comes to emotions :-<
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@Crusty Dem:
Ha, funny you should say that! First guy I ever went out on a date, I re-met on FB. On the plus side he turned out to be much better looking than he was in High School. Sadly he has the same deadly condition as your first love. He spent months trying to convert me to the Ron Paul cult until I couldn’t stand it anymore and unfriended him.
Rasputin's Evil Twin
I was a drinking buddy of a blonde bombshell in grad school in Albany 30 years ago. She was a dead ringer for Miss July 1983, and blushed/was flattered when I pointed out the issue on the stands. Haven’t seen her in years, but the issue does make me think of “Centerfold” and what might have, etc.
Ralph Spoilsport
After 30 years, a couple of kids, you realize you made a mistake.
We’re together again.
I feel 21 again, but just don’t look it anymore
Ralph Spoilsport
After 30 years, a couple of kids, you realize you made a mistake.
We’re together again.
I feel 21 again, but just don’t look it anymore
Sphex
Just delurking to say something I think every day: I love this blog and the people who hang out here, and I’m grateful to all of you for making me feel less alone.
My HS love… If I had more than one life, I would like to spend one married to him- but the small town, small small world wasn’t enough for my ONE life.
These past three days I’ve spent… escalating an amazing friendship into something else. The fact that this is happening with a woman is requiring some rearranging of mental furniture (I’m a woman, and over 40), but at this point I’m thinking that happiness isn’t so easily found that I should waste time complaining about the challenging details… I’d rather just focus on the happy…