SOoooo, confession time! Who is your 'one that got away'.

[Whatawaytomakealiving]

Do you look back and know you should be with someone else? Do you wish a relationship had developed further? Who ended it? Why did you make the choices you made? Have you any regrets; if no regrets have you dreams of what could have been?
I can remember as a twenty something listening to my fiancé talking on the telephone to a friend of ours that was announcing his engagement. I felt like I was actually going to faint. He couldn't be marrying someone else. He' cared for me, he was a soldier and we were penpals( hey remember those prior to social media). We had got to know him whilst on holiday. He was always there for me and I think I thought my 'back up plan'. I know I sound awful, it didn't feel like that. I think I was biding my time. I didn't end up with either of them, my RAF penpal or my fiancé.
What is your story?

My best friend's brother. I loved him utterly. He was 18 and absolutely gorgeous. We had a snog one night that was fairly heavy but he was in mid break up with his girlfriend so nothing more happened. When they finally broke up I expected him to come running. He didn't and I was devastated (naturally being 16). I should have lost my virginity to him. I didn't but I still have sex dreams about him regularly at age 37. He doesn't come even close to being the amazing man that my husband is but I still have those dreams. Ah teenage lust.

I have one.

Not two days go by without thinking of him.

He was my university lecturer. We got together when I was finishing my final year.

I was young, stupid, cheated. I cannot comprehend the person I was then now.

He was my best friend, the love of my life, everything that mattered and I'm still in love with him nearly six years later. Much to the detriment of all my relationships over the past half decade.

But he has moved on. And that's okay; I'm happy for him. My heart, however, will never be quite whole again, no matter how great my career, friends, life are. He is and always will be the one.

For many, many years I felt this way about my ex - as though the life that I should have been living had stopped when we broke up, or as though it had carried on, but a different woman (his lovely new girlfriend) in the leading role. For a long time, I just didn't know what to do with myself or how to fill all the years left without him. I ended up marrying and having a baby on the rebound, which was not a very clever thing to do, to put it mildly.

Happily, I'm over him now. We're still great friends, but I find the idea of getting back together just, well, a bit embarrassing! He got a bit weird recently, and sent some rather sentimental texts about old times. I couldn't shut him down quick enough!!

I have one I think about occasionally.
I worked in a resort in Greece, spent a lot of time in a restaurant connected to the hotel I looked after. There was a lovely waiter who was really sweet who I quite liked but he was pretty shy. I was seeing a colleague for the last few weeks I was there and the waiter guy told me on my last night that he'd wanted to ask me out. Shame, I never went back to that resort and got together with DH six months later and we've been together 16 years. Funnily enough, waiter was a Greek version of DH (but I'd known DH for a few years before Greece). I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I'd ended up with him.

Awful on-again off-again relationship with someone in my early 20s - he couldn't decide between me and someone else and I was besotted with him so kept putting up with it. We kept in touch and he mellowed over the years, then got in touch one time to profoundly apologise for what he had done - someone had done it to him and he was a sadder and wiser man. Also, a much nicer man and we had some nice phone chats and I was able to remember all the things I had loved about him so we became friends. He lived abroad but then got in touch to say he was returning and could we meet up. I was married by this time and felt comfortable meeting him to reminisce and we had a lovely evening, which seemed very healing for us both.

About a year later I heard via fb that he had died of cancer - so I guess the return home was him coming home to die, and the meet-up was him making things right before he died.

I wish he had told me, but respect his need not to. And I feel the loss of him - he had done well and was making some important contributions in a significant field of work, but also we might have ended up being good friends too.

The more you all share, the more I think I may have other 'ones who got away'. 😳
My secondary school teacher; RAF officer who lived abroad; the gorgeous hairdresser/owner/ manager who said he would be a millionaire before he was 30! Some of those were missed chances rather than the love of my life.
Like you Lady I was asked on a date by a gorgeous Italian waiter, the son of the restaurant owner in Spain. I was too shy to go, too worried at how I would get home myself. I just said 'no thank you' then wrote him a letter which went unanswered, saying I would like to meet him next time I was in Spain! Fuel and Roar your stories seem quite sad. Are you still in touch with these men?

Oh, crossed post Recherche, some closure but very sad. I often think I would like to meet some of these men now and talk; more grown up talk; detached conversations to understand what happened then.

I have a few kiwi who wrote to me once but i lost the letter, and therefore address..
One I just sort of stopped seeing, but expected to meet up again. Heard had met someone else, and because i was still in love thought 'oh well it's bound to be amazing' but didn't really check. Now i can find them on facebook and worry they might have died without knowing i think about them almost every day.
Another i dated for a while but was freaked out when they thought we were in a relationship, and they stopped talking to me.
Two went to Australia and one started kick-boxing..Not sure what that says about me!

My best friend from 14 -22. I haven't seen or heard from him in years but I still think about him regularly.

I'm back with mine! Together as teenagers/early twenties and things got serious pretty fast, I felt too young to settle down so ended it and then spent the last 15 years wondering what if?

Then I got back in touch not long ago and the feelings all came back. Miraculously we were both single and he'd thought about me since the split too. He was the one I measured all of my relationships against and I just couldn't get him out of my head.

So far it's working out great - I'm just gutted we lost so much time but looking forward to making up for it. We're moving pretty quickly but it just feels right somehow

My sixth form Product Design teacher. I was so utterly in love with him, I think I still am. Such a lovely, kind and compassionate man. I think about him a lot. I haven't seen him or spoken to him for almost eleven years and it hurts.

He only thinks he's got away...

username no but will do soon

No, I'm not.

I accepted a while ago that at the age of 29 (now) I will probably have to settle. When I say he was my soulmate, best friend, other half, or wasn't immature shite.

I love my life. I'm so lucky in a thousand ways. I haven't rules out loving again. But no, I know who my "one" is but I fucked it up years ago.

I'm fine-

Many typos there. Sorry.

I have had a few but the one man I really regret not being mine is my ex. We met at university and dated almost instantly, he had a terrible memory because he had a stoke at 17 but he always remember me. I used to stay at his parents during weekends and well- the sex was other worldly!!

We broke up without reason 6 months later and well let's say I was a shell. We didn't talk unless our courses collided (it was awkward) or I had to inspect his room (I worked for a student letting a company).

A few years later we began obsessively texting and having a laugh but never meeting but he was in my life and for that much I was grateful. That was on and off until a year ago.

We became very close. I had been through a tough break up, he became by best friend, he got the train to see me and told me as he kissed my forehead "You're the woman that reminds me I can love again". We saw each other at least once a week for months, had some fabulous sex and well I was ready to tell him how I felt.

It was my turn to see him in his city and he told me another woman was interested. We did some back and forth but in the end I was too meek and during a (his) drunken midnight call to me said sorry. Turns out I talked him out of dating me for her. I took a break from our friendship but have been speaking again over the past fortnight.

He is in love and my heart hurts but I want him to be happy. I miss him terribly and even though I'm happy he talks to me I just want to cry. Talking of which he has just snapped me and my god I love him.
I love him!! And sorry for the long post.

My 'one' died. I was 17 and he was 18. I know it sounds incredible - as in, hardly believable - but I have never met a man to compare with him, in all the years (and I'm talking decades) since. Had a number of relationships, two long term and one a marriage, and whilst I was in love with xh, he was never suited to me in the way that first one was. He was also the most mature man I've ever had a relationship with (rather sadly).His mum said to me when he died to remember that he wasn't perfect, and I thought at the time, no he wasn't - just perfect for me.

I was reading recently an interview with Jennifer Warnes about Leonard Cohen (can't link as the article has disappeared) and she said, "When I first met him I thought, ‘That’s a really interesting person. I can’t wait to meet some more people like that.’ But there weren’t any more. I never found anyone to fill that spot. How could I? He turned up at times when nobody else did. And he showed up in ways that nobody else would."

That's very sad, hare. So young. I'm sorry.

That quotation... that's exactly how I've always felt about my 'one'. Never met anyone, male or female, young or old, who is even a bit like him.

Someone I met while volunteering abroad five years ago. He was there on holiday with friends. I don't think I've ever clicked so instantly with anyone. I was in the dying throes of my university relationship, he was heartbroken from his long-term girlfriend leaving him six months previously. We met every night in a bar in the town we were in and talked and talked. The night before he left we kissed and I was horrified that I'd 'cheated' on my boyfriend. We lived about an hour away from each other in the UK, but I was due to move to the other end of the country four weeks later when I finished my MA. When I got back I finished with my boyfriend (both relieved tbh) and for those four weeks we drove to see each other every couple of days while I should have been finishing my bloody dissertation and I seriously considered not moving to see if we could make a go of it. In the end I didn't have the courage. Partly because I wasn't sure he liked me as much as I did him - he was ten years older than me and I was head over heels and couldn't actually believe he liked me back - and (I'm very ashamed to say it) because he was quadriplegic and I wasn't sure I could really deal with everything that went with that. I think a few years on it wouldn't bother me as much but I was scared and didn't know anything about it. And his life was very settled where he was with his support network and I wanted to move around, was due to start a PhD.

Shortly after I moved I met DH and am very happy, love him to bits. But still think of the other guy occasionally, and really really hope he's happy.

Mine was a beautiful man, MAW.
We were young, 17/18, in the airforce. We were apart for a year, ish, after training but had so much fun and worked brilliantly together, he was my first absolute true love.
We left the airforce but he wanted to join the army and I didn't want to be an army wife. I was young and didn't want to be in long distance relationship again. We split quite amicably as I recall, he wrote a couple of times but we lost touch and I got married to my current dh, whom I adore with my whole heart but I have never forgotten MAW and the fab time we had and have always wondered even if he's still alive. Every year I have at least two or three vivid dreams about him. I've tried to find him online but to no avail.
I hope he is happy and content wherever he may be.

Mine was a guy I fancied at school, over 20 years ago. We had a bit of a snog one night in a camping trip but I always considered him out of my league so I settled for being mates with him. I always wondered what might have been though, if I'd jut been a bit more confident in myself. We lost touch when we both went off to different Universities at opposite ends of the country.

We met at a school reunion a few years ago and had a drink and a nice chat and reminisced about old times. We added each other on FB but he barely uses it so very little contact since, other than the odd 'like' on a photo or whatever.

Then a few months ago on my birthday, I get a FB message from me wishing me happy birthday. We had a pleasant chat and then he said that he'd been thinking about that camping trip when we were 17 and that he really regretted not asking me out then but he didn't think he stood a chance.

Can't help but wonder what might have been if we'd both just had more balls way back when.

Yes, someone I left behind when I went to uni and even now when I see him is pure electricity beyond anything I've ever experienced.

It's like the universe colliding with itself. I was very young and it would probably have ended in divorce and affairs. I'm very cynical today.