Is this story beautiful or sad (or a bit creepy)?

[LadyRenoir]

I recently caught up with a friend. She told me a story which I keep on thinking about... Her mum attended a 30 year high school reunion.
Towards the end of the evening a guy came up to her and asked her if she was such and such, X Maiden Name. She said she was.
He then proceeded to tell her than 30 years ago he was madly in love with her from afar, but never mustered the courage to ask her. He was planning to ask her to go to prom with him, but again, was too afraid to come and talk to her (they were in different classes) and so never got to do it. So after the graduation he never saw her again until the reunion.

He then said that he also got married and had kids, but every day for the past 30 years he had been waking up regretting never speaking to friend's mum and imagining how his life would be different if he was braver, and how he pretty much had been miserable and unhappy waking up next to a woman he didnt love every morning. For 30 years.

And then he walked away.

At first we both thought awww, so romantic, to have someone who would love you so much even if they didnt really know wach other. But then I thought it's so sad that this man has spent the last 30 years pretty much regretting not speakign to someone that maybe/possibly would not be the right match, and how sad for his family to always be 'second best'...

He fancied a shag.

Either way, she dodged a bullet there.

I went to an English High School in the 80s & we had a 6th form ball so they did happen.

Don't recall anyone calling them proms back then though.

He’s unhappy in his marriage, and rather than doing something about that, he’s selling himself a dream about what might have been.

If he felt any genuine love for this woman, he might have watched from afar and felt happy if she looked contented. He would not risk her happiness and stability by telling her his selfish tale of woe.

It's really creepy imo. She's not a real person in his eyes. She's a mythical creature. Men who do this to women tend to get quite nasty if you dare to be human or average or have bad days. I pity his wife.

I'm now even more relieved that I have never been to any high school reunions. It's creepy and weird.

Nah, he’s unhappy in his marriage and has a fantasy that things would’ve been different if he’d been with your Df’s mom. I wonder how his poor wife would feel to know he’s woken up every morning and felt unhappy with her!

Weird to dump all that on your df’s mum - maybe he was hoping for an affair?

30 years?? Yeah creepy and foolish

Not romantic at all. If he actually knew properly your friends Mum and wasnt married it might be romantic but the fact he didnt even know this woman and that he is married makes it just very sad in a walter mitty way.

Creepy.

Reminds me a bit of that brilliant scene in Fargo where Marge meets up with someone she knew at school, fantastic writing, it's so funny and uncomfortable.

I actually feel sorry for his poor wife being second best. Even though she may not know that. I think personally he should tell his wife he doesn't love her and never has. At least that way she's free to find the man who will love her, because He's out there somewhere. Instead of acting like he did her a favour by marrying her.

Something similar happened to my friend. Unfortunately she was very vulnerable at the time and was so flattered she started a relationship with him which evolved into a nightmare!

He turned out to be a massive control freak, luckily she realised this early on but she had loads of trouble trying to get rid of him!!

I don't know whether it is creepy or not! I don't think I would have given her the full-on declaration of undying love stuff but I was madly in love (or so I thought) with a boy at another school when we were 17/18. I know he liked me too but we just never got it together. I other think of him as 'the one that got away' and follow his career on various platforms. I would love to have been with him.

Not only is it weird and creepy but also makes him look like a pathetic loser. Rather than getting on with sorting his life out he has been pining for something that never existed and almost certainly never could have existed. so much easier to live in that fantasy and feel like a victim than face up to taking responsibility for getting on with your life. Just as well he never spoke to your mum all those years ago. She wouldn't have wanted to end up with that.

It's a bog standard tactic to try and get laid at a school reunion.

Don't feel sorry for him. He doesn't mean a word of it.

She's a mythical creature. Men who do this to women tend to get quite nasty if you dare to be human or average or have bad days

Yup, been there done that!

He was using his unattainable fantasy of friend's mum to avoid intimacy in his real relationships imo. Plenty of people do this; I've done it myself, to my shame. Luckily I grew up - I guess he never did.

May have been after a one night stand hoping she was unhappy in her marriage. What a massive wanker either way.

Well, I was at school 30 years ago and don't remember anyone in my class, so,yes, creepy..

I agree with MitziK, there isn't a word of truth in that and I wouldn't waste my emotion being sorry for his wife. He may not even have a wife, let alone one of thirty years!

He's spun a yarn in the hope that she'll be bewitched enough to get involved.

I remember lots of people from high school (more than thirty years ago) but not everyone, there's way too many for that!

I live in Mexico but had left for ten years and when I got back a friend of mine told me that a friend of hers had been "in love" since he had seen me some twelve years earlier. I had zero memory of that person. She arranged for us to have a date, but what a creep. He tried the line that I was the first intelligent woman he had ever met which, apart from anything else, was totally insulting for our mutual friend.

We had a High School (it was in the name) for what is now KS3 and a Community College for 14-18. Founded in the early seventies. In a different county I did teaching practice in a High School (also in the name) which was years 7 to 11.

We had a Sixth Form Ball in 1987.

oh and yes, (a) creepy (b) codswallop

This is someone fishing for an affair

It's certainly unusual but I have first hand experience of this. Ok I was at university but I have a friend who wanted me to be more than just a friend, but I just didn't have feelings for him in that way, I was already dating the man who would be my exh. Fast forward a quarter of a century, my marriage has imploded and the friend (who had married with kids) said he would leave his wife for me ... i made out that it was a joke which he went along with to save face but I know he meant it.

Unrequited love does exist (

He has lived a fantasy for years because he hasn’t been happy she just happened to be the person he fantasied about being happy with there is nothing romantic about it.

It isn’t Love it’s the being in love with a fantasy. We have nearly all done it to some degree. Unrequited attention maybe but there is no love involved as he doesn’t know her he loves the fantasy of her and what she is like not the reality