Do you have the ‘One that got away’

[Towonderwhatif]

Or the one you wonder about occasionally?

I knew a boy at college age..we weren’t together ever, he was with other people, as was I

We got chatting over Fb maybe 9 years ago on and off for a few years. We’d send lengthy messages to one another and i’d say he was the funniest, most interesting person i’d ever connected with
We were due to meet up, but fate didn’t take that path..I was with someone (still am, but not happy) I had a child, he was not able to.
He married and lives abroad, I too live abroad but in a different country

He still just randomly pops into my head. The connection we had on every level was amazing and he thought the same

Yes. Met at 16 and only went out together briefly after I stopped seeing someone else - he asked me regularly and I always said no. Different unis in the days of letter writing or a shared phone and we lost touch. I tried to find him before got married just to be sure I was doing the right thing, but couldn’t find him. He got touch with me 20 years later and we met up. The feelings were just as strong but he was still married (I was divorced) and he told me he’d never leave when his kids were small. I was brokenhearted. We met up a few times but I had to stop it completely as it was just too painful. But. If he turned up on my doorstep tomorrow I would turn him away as I know that despite all the things he’s said over the years he just never wanted me enough.

I used to but about 10 years after he got away we reconnected. 15 years further on and we have 2 kids now

Yep, and i still adore him.

We DM one another on Twitter, and my heart still flutters when i see his name.

Yes. He was lovely, a really decent guy. I was too young to know how rare that actually is and too messed up to think I deserved it.

I was in an abusive marriage & fell for a work colleague. When exh found out he threatened violence to him- I know he would have badly hurt him & then me, so I ended it & stayed in the marriage. This was nearly 40 years ago & I was a scared little mouse then. I lost track of what happened to my colleague but he'd kept an eye on my life & we reconnected via Facebook after I'd been widowed. He was married by then, but said hed never forgotten how he felt about me. He planned to take early retirement , leave his wife to be with me & I was so happy. A week later he had a fatal heart attack. He was the love of my life & I was devastated.

Not exactly one that got away, because it really wouldn’t have worked, but one that definitely left an occasional itch.

We were colleagues way back when; work is a distant memory, but my old employer sends out an occasional magazine, which includes death notices, and about a year ago, there he was.

On the back of that, I did a bit of internet sleuthing, and found that he’d been convicted of drink driving, not once, but twice. The second time he was given a suspended prison sentence, and rightly so. I certainly felt some sadness that he’d died relatively young, but my overriding feeling, even now (rightly or wrongly), is relief that I wasn’t part of what must have become a shit-show of a life.

I will never condone or allow drinking and driving, and sometimes it’s tempting to wonder whether I could have changed his path. But then I think that anyone who will drink enough to be x3 over the limit would do whatever they want anyway and fuck the consequences. I try not to give it too much headspace now.

Was it worth it?

That would have been a bit shit for his wife though.

Same here.

11 years apart and married with two kids now. He never left my heart in all our time apart.

Yes, we were childhood sweethearts. He went away to uni and whilst I was still at college things started to drift and eventually we split. I dated a few other people and then moved to the same uni city when we got back together again, for maybe a year. We were taking different paths in life and I was enjoying my new sense of adventure and freedom. I treated him badly and didn’t know what I wanted. We continued to stay in touch for a couple more years after that with studying and mutual friends keeping us in contact. Then I moved to a different area and we didn’t contact each other again after that. I haven’t seen him for 15 years, but still think and dream about him often. The last 10 years have been busy raising children and I thought about him much less, but he has been in my thoughts again more regularly. He doesn’t have any social media and I don’t know anything about his life now other than odd snippets. I don’t know how I would feel if I saw him again but in my head the love I had for him has never gone away after all this time, although we don’t actually know each other now, and neither of us are likely to be the same people we were back then.

Yes. I can’t/won’t say more other than we never really got our chance and now we never will.

Absolutely. Never regretted a thing.

Kind of... He's still actually a really close friend.
I became friends with this guy through a shared hobby whilst I was married. Eventually my husband and I separated and after a while this friend asked me out. I said no because I thought he was too good for me and I was scared of things not working out and losing him. My ex husband and I stayed amicable and at one point he even told me that I should go out with my friend as he thought we were so well suited.
But we both ended up getting with other people and have settled down but I think I will always hold a candle for him, even though I will never let on in real life.

The key thing, OP, is that you are not happy. That’s probably why you are thinking of your ‘could have been’ . What are you going to do about that?

My Prince Charming who I met in college. He was so handsome and I fell hard for him. He was in the USA to study engineering and I knew he was planning to go back to his country.Oh well. I had him for a year. I do wonder whatever became of him.

Gosh, that sounds really sad and so painful for you. Do you know what he’s doing now?

My first love, we were very young and had a silly falling out. He wanted me back and I left it too long, the day I had decided to contact him he had a new girlfriend.

Over the years we would bump into each other, always strangely at a time of need, (when his step dad died, when my Mum was ill) and would hook up. I went off to uni and by the time I was back he had got married and started a family.

I always thought about him over the years.I got married and had two kids, thought I was living the happy ever after, never saw the one that got away despite living in the same town.

My husband unfortunately did some bad things and I had finally had enough, started to contemplate leaving. The next morning I bump into the one that got away on my way to work, heart hammers, he then messages me later on just as friends having a catch up.

Turns out over the years he was always watching me from afar making sure I was happy and I was also his one that got away.

He is a very good man and we decided that us crossing paths again was to tell us that he needed to work on his marriage and I needed to leave mine because he reminded me I was worth more. I believe the universe made us bump into each other one last time to give me the confidence to leave. I still think about him often but not with the same heart pull. And I am happily single living an incredible life with my beautiful children who live in a happy and safe home.

Sort of. Someone who worked in the same holiday resort as me for two consecutive seasons. We were never officially a couple but had mad chemistry and ended up in bed together quite often. Kept in touch sporadically since then; he's met my now DH and I've met his partner, all friendly. But that chemistry is still there which alarms me when we meet. And I often want to message him for no apparent reason, but I don't because I am wary of what it could lead to.

Kind of. High school crush (HSC) but never dated, and circled in and out of each others lives for about 10 years, across multiple countries. Tried it on with him a couple of times but he never reciprocated and in the end I accepted he only saw me as a friend, stopped initiating contact and we lost touch.

Met and married someone else, had kids, split up. Couldn't get HSC out of my mind, but couldn't find him on the internet at all. Last year had a brainwave, found him via his sister-in-law who gave me his current number. He came to visit me within a couple of weeks, sparks finally flew, and we've been together ever since 🥰

HSC says I was his first love too, but he never took me seriously when I came on to him earlier, as I always did it in a joking manner so that I didn't lose face if he turned me down!! 35 years it took us... But he's not the one that got away any more 🥰

Yes. I think about him most days, keep a picture of us in a safe place and close my eyes and Remeber his smell when our song is played. I havent seen him for over twenty years and I looked down the aisle for him during the marriage ceremony to see if he would come running in yes i know, very corny .

The irony is that i chucked HIM.

No. He didn't get away, and he's still the one.

Sorry. I've been here and there and haven't actively checked on the thread. Thank you for asking.

No, I don't know where he he is or what he's doing. He wasn't a romantic liaison (as such 😚) but someone I met and then kept in regular touch with. He lived, probs still does, in London and moved in up-market circles: very different to me.

I have no connection to anyone in his network, nor he in mine. Having said that, if world peace depended on it, I'd find him easy enough. But .... no good reason to at the moment.

In my imagination, he settled down and had a couple of lovely children. He was very handsome 😚

We used to message about our lives and rant about our football teams ⚽ I helped him out with some support when he had bad news. And he did likewise for me with some stuff. It's sometimes useful to have the perspective of someone who knows you but isn't too close.

That's it really. We messaged and laughed. And then one day we didn't, or rather he didn't 😓I have absolutely no idea why he disappeared. It was a simple relationship, well it was from my end. I'm OK with it now, although he's never disappeared from my conscious.

I'm still here: same phone number, same email address. I'm easy to find, should he ever feel the need. It'd be great to hear from him again. If it's mean to be, it'll be. If not, it won't.

2 who got away...

One lovely man I worked with when we were young (and had few morals). We both had partners but had an intense relationship as lovers and friends. I was engaged to be married (should have read the writing on the wall that it wasn't the marriage for me). He got a post-doctoral fellowship in the USA, and was devastated that I wouldn't give everything up and go with him... He went on his own. Now we're in our 60s and facebook friends with a very similar set of interests. I'm in a long term happy 2nd marriage of more than 30 years, but I'd still say 'yes' in a heartbeat.

Other person I met when I was 13 and he was the boyfriend of my closest childhood friend. Their relationship was very on/off (not surprising at that age) and at one of their off times, he and I went to the school film club together, and kissed. A few weeks later he was back with my friend and they've been together ever since. We (friend, her dh, me and my dh) are all really good friends. Friends dh and I sometimes joke about the two of us ending up in the same care home together. I think if we were both widowed we might just do that!

I’ve been with DH 27 years and thought I’d got a one that got away. But when I really think about it, we were only together for 4 years….. not really long enough to completely piss me off! Rose coloured specs and all that.

We had seven years of on/off good sex but he went to work away, when I met my husband and tried to forget about him. He rang me the day before we got married but I refused to say anything more than goodbye. He lives in Finland now.
34 years later I do wonder but know the chap I choose is better all around.