This is a story everyone has at a certain age. And i guess I'm just hitting the stage where my friends are starting to have kids, especially the women my age.
I'm someone who has definetely fallen in love once, and a maybe on one or two other occasions. Got nothing against relationships or dating, I do date occasionally, but it just doesnt feel worth the effort put into it.
The ONE time I was madly in 'love' was a crush on a girl I had in school. When i was like 13, lasted till well idk. Maybe even still, I genuinely don't know how I feel. Wrote poems and stories about her, the only woman ive ever written for or about.
Never dated her, never told her how mad I was about her. Left the country when i was about 17. Talked maybe 3-4 times over the next 8-9 years. Although i still continued writing about her etc. Think ive posted poems and stories about her on Lemmy too. I can't get her out of my head for years.
Today i just saw a post saying she recently had a child and got married with pics. For a moment I thought this is going to wreck me emotionally lol. And yet I don't feel much. Its literally the only thought in my head and i need to talk about it to somebody soon before my head explodes (hence this post too lol).
Like I planned to give her a gift and ask her out before i was leaving the country but I never mustered the confidence. I have that locket to this day. And it means the world to me haha.
I'll always have love for her. Even if she probably barely remembers anything about me but my name.
I genuinely dont know what I'm feeling but there is smth. Its not good, its not bad. Its like repressed anxiety or panic. Its just weird. I dont have any ex who I care about enough to keep tabs on, so dont know what they're up to, but this one is smth.
Anyone here know the feeling I'm talking about? I'm sure some of y'all have had similar experiences atleast.
I was "in love" with a girl for about 4 years. I finally worked up the nerve to ask her out just after we graduated. She had been single but just started dating someone. I missed my chance.
It was a bummer. She was so fucking pretty and, to the degree I spoke with her, she was kind. But she was quiet and reserved. I didn't even know her, to be honest, but I dreamed about her — fantasized about her in both a sexual and non-sexual context.
But that was over thirty years ago now. And in that time I've learned a lot about myself. About life. First, she was easy to project fantasies onto. She was quiet and passive. Not without a personality but reserved. And everything I loved about her was how I imagined her to be. Also she was beautiful, but what if she wasn't?
I only knew her from the school bus. But there was another girl in the bus, who I knew a little better. Not as pretty, but not ugly either. She actually liked me. She hit on me. And I was not rude but I didn't pursue it at all. Partly because she was intensely Catholic and I was atheist — but I have no idea the religious inclinations of the first girl! I found out later she attended some evangelical church and in hindsight, I probably was less compatible with her than the other girl.
By sheer coincidence, I did marry someone from that bus. Neither of those girls and not right away — I was not ready for a serious relationship then no matter what I thought. I was very self-absorbed and self-interested. I married her after we were both once divorced. She'd had kids. We were both in our mid-thirties.
Part of me wondered for years — longed to find out. But not any more. I've let that go. If I ran into her and recognized her, it might be fun to have a laugh over. But my curiosity about what might've been has faded.
ding ding ding
I've literally always known the same to be the case for me. I barely knew her. And i actually think we would be a bad couple if we were together lol. But she was the first, and she was convenient to project upon. Especially since I had no chance with her, she could be the perfect 'object of desire', but from a distance only.
Good sir, are you aware a world exists outside that bus?
God I wish I can get there soon. I hate my mind being occupied by this one thing.
Right??? My first wife was not on that bus. I had several relationships with bus mates during my school years, and only one was post-high school. But that bus was very formative during those years. Friends, enemies, unrequited love on both sides. The sheer human drama that unfurled!
That being said, every home I've had outside of a 5 year stint in Washington DC has been within a 6 mile radius. So I guess that says everything, doesn't it?
Maybe be open to other relationships? Nothing gets you truly over that sense of loss better than moving on with your own life. A part of you sounds like it has been trapped in that past, in that imagined possibility. And now you're lamenting the death of possibility. I've been there. More than once. But life goes on regardless. Maybe being free of that possibility lets you be open to another. Good luck!