Tell me about your "one that got away"

Theothername · 19/04/2024 10:16

Mine have transformed into bullets dodged as I got older and wiser

WhiteLeopard · 19/04/2024 10:18

I had a boyfriend when I was 15 to 18 - we split up when I went away to university. I am very happy with my lovely DH so no regrets, but I do sometimes wonder what if...?

beguilingeyes · 19/04/2024 10:23

Mine was a friend, part of the gang and I never told him how I felt about him. It's all a bit Charlie and Fiona from Four Weddings. Don't think I ever really got over it and my stupidity.

Hoolahoophop · 19/04/2024 10:30

Used to think about mine a lot, then met again later in life. Turned out that it was not a one that got away but a lucky escape.

HeChokedOnAChorizo · 19/04/2024 10:34

Mine is an ex boyfriend who i dated for a few months when i was 16, i loved him and he split up with me as he was interested in someone else and didnt want to cheat. It broke my heart and over the years if i saw him on facebook my heart leapt. We stayed friends over the years and kept in facebook contact.

Well 33 year later we are now a couple again and even live together. I have forgiven him for the past 😁We are looking to get married next year. The "one that got away" got caught again 😃

Aydel · 19/04/2024 10:37

Mine was on and off for years. I last saw him on Boxing Day, before moving back overseas. I never heard from him again. I found him on Linked Inthe other week and he looks like he’s about to start a fight at a wedding.

MintyCedric · 19/04/2024 10:40

My sixth form ‘first love’.

He called it a day because we were ‘too young and need to have other experiences’. Probably fair enough but I was heartbroken at the time.

We stayed in touch for a few years until we met our respective husband/wife, and my parents and his stayed good friends.

I always thought we be in touch as good friends again some day, if nothing else, but sadly he died suddenly when we were 39.

Anon67 · 19/04/2024 11:01

I was living with a bloke (S). One of his friends from work (P) was absolutely not the heartthrob type but I had a massive crush on him. He was just lovely. Calm and quiet with a really dry sense of humour. Just a nice man. S was the polar opposite - loud and unnecessarily sweary in a show offy way. Sometimes in public (he was in a band so we were in public quite often) I would cringe.

P and I used to travel to S’s gigs together quite often and he’d sometimes joke as he got in the car “Where shall we go then?” (S’s band weren’t that good…) and I used to long to say “Anywhere but the bloody Pub Where S Is Playing”

I nursed this crush for weeks, then realised a) S was a bit of an arsehole (various other reasons on top of the above) and b) that even if he wasn’t, having a stonking crush on another bloke didn’t exactly bode well for a relationship so i moved out.

Thing is I’m unsure whether my crush was entirely unrequited. He’d never have been blatant or inappropriate but there were just times when I got the feeling he kind of liked me too.

GreyCarpet · 19/04/2024 13:16

I don't think I've ever considered there to be a 'one that got away'.

There are a couple of men I didn't have sex with that I'd quite like to have done - an old university lecturer and someone else but I'm not sure that counts! 😅

KitKatChunki · 19/04/2024 13:18

For me it's not one but bits of a few. None of them were ultimately very thoughtful, nice or mature but they did each have good points that I sometimes miss. I'd never ever want to go back out with any of my exes again though!

NewGirlinClass · 19/04/2024 13:51

I got 2
First boyfriend, we lost virginity together we were 15, stayed together through A levels then went to different Unis. I got in with a very sporty crowd and hard drinking crowd. Lost touch. He is 'famous' now as a scientist.
Second was a woman, we were in a house share together. I thought that if we had sex and then broke up then have to find somewhere to live. Too much trouble. It might have saved me wasting time with some men.

Fuckstix · 19/04/2024 15:54

Only a few dates over a year but my god, what a connection.

Until my now DP I had simply never felt so seen, heard or understood. Lots of reasons it didn't happen, big cultural expectations on his side, I don't think we actually had all that much in common beyond said connection and some work/ academic stuff, he wasn't in a great place following a close bereavement. His behaviour was also a bit less than ideal in the end.

In some ways I'm glad of the experience although it didn't lead anywhere and left me quite infatuated for a while. It was at the time I was looking for someone long term and honestly, I think unwittingly comparing everyone to that connection for good or bad meant I didn't settle when I had chances leaving me free to meet DP somewhere quite unexpected.

Hellohello48 · 16/08/2024 23:26

glovepillow22 · 19/04/2024 08:40

After discussions with friends a few weeks ago, it came to light that more of us than I expected have a "one that got away"...

Mine was a whirlwind fling when I was 23 but for plenty reasons couldn't be pursued.

Sometimes I wonder what would have been had I had cared less about what others thought and gone for it but I am happily married now with 2 DC.

The past just has a tendency to creep into my thoughts now and again.

Anyone else?

Similar to yours...

I was 23 and fell for a guy I was working with. We only spent a very short amount of time together before it had to come to an end and I had to go elsewhere for work.

I've thought about him often over the years (15 years almost) and wonder what I'd say to him if I saw him.

He's just had a baby with his partner and lives a million miles away.

LibertyPrime · 17/08/2024 00:12

First one would of been an older partner pritty much offering a relationship but at the time i was not sure

then a relationship that lasted around 2 years or almost, then i dont think i was ready to settle down as if i had im guessing id have the family package
i saw my ex the other day at local supermarket and had a chat and catchup, she was the best one i could of had and if i could change time then id redo the relationship.

justread · 17/08/2024 00:36

When I was 22, sadly for religious and logistical reasons, it was just too difficult.
We have stayed in very regular contact but haven't physically seen each other for 18 years.
Both married with families now, 25 years later

I do wonder from time to time what would have been, and I know he does too.

Endoftheroad12345 · 17/08/2024 05:26

I was 17 and and exchange student from NZ a little village in Germany. He was in my class and we kissed on new year’s eve 1998/99. Three weeks later I left to go home to NZ … he wrote me a letter saying he was going to save up and come and visit me but my mum was so strict I knew I wouldn’t be allowed a boy to stay so I never wrote back and we never had contact again. I thought of him now and then over the years and when Facebook launched I looked him up but I could see he was married so I never made contact.

In 2022 my marriage to abusive exH was ending and I got a linkedin message from my old flame. By some miracle, I was visiting Europe on a work trip (from NZ) and he also had a work trip to Brussels on the same day I had a conference. We went out for dinner on 14 November 2022 and it was as if no time had passed, I now understand the idea of “coup de foudre”, it was as if I’d been struck by lightening. Nothing happened between us and I had to catch the early Eurostar to London the next day and I cried the whole way, thinking I’d never see him again.

I ended my marriage once and for all when I got home, thinking that nothing would ever happen with high school old flame but I deserved someone who looked at me the way he did (as opposed to dishing out emotional and physical abuse the way my ex did).

On Valentine’s day 2023 he sent me flowers and I flew to meet him in New York in May 2023 and he met me at JFK where we kissed for the first time in 24 years. We are so happy and planning the rest of our lives together.

It sounds like the plot of a movie doesn’t it? I love telling our story. Two years ago I was so sad and trapped on such a miserable marriage - I would never have dreamed I would be so lucky to meet (or re meet) to love of my life in such an unexpected way.

LadyGAgain · 17/08/2024 07:02

What a lovely story to wake up to @Endoftheroad12345 . Many congratulations!

Soshu · 17/08/2024 07:09

My first real boyfriend, together from 17 till 22, got engaged, bought a house. I didn’t appreciate what I had. I wish I was celebrating 35 years together

AnywhereAnyoneAnyTime · 17/08/2024 07:19

I was 19, and had to move to another country. We swore we it was only temporary but the distance made a split inevitable.

he called me out of nowhere about 15 years later and talking to him it felt like no time had passed. I was still married then so no feelings were ever talked about but I did wonder…

And then I found out he was about to get married for the 3rd time which made me think twice.
Since then he has recently divorced his 4th wife and has just got engaged.
Lucky escape me thinks.

FlyingontheGround · 17/08/2024 07:21

Someone at uni, friend of a friend, not classically handsome but we just instantly clicked. Had a brilliant day out, not really a date but chemistry was there and we kissed. I rejected him because I was in love with somebody else who messed me around for years and it ultimately never went anywhere. Still wonder what might have been if I had only let him in.

Iloveburgerswaymorethanishould · 17/08/2024 07:24

Mine was when I was 15. Met him at an event our local bigger town held once a year… fizzled out after a few weeks but never forgot each other. Then in the age of Facebook we reconnected but were both married to others with children etc. In 2018 I moved back to our home town after I divorced. We started chatting and the rest is history, as they say. 6 1/2 years, an engagement and a little boy later…. He’s snoring his head off next to me. Hasn’t been easy but I feel we were always meant to be, him even more so. He often tells me he’s loved me since that first day. Even his mum says he used to go on and on and on about me all the time, for 20 odd years 😂😂.

Endoftheroad12345 · 17/08/2024 07:36

how gorgeous @Iloveburgerswaymorethanishould

How long was the gap between reconnecting? I feel the same about my DP - I love him more than I thought possible, he said he fell in love with me the first time I walked into the English class in 1998 and never stopped (which I take with a grain of salt, he did marry someone else and have two kids in the interim 😂)

@AnywhereAnyoneAnyTime maybe now’s your chance 😂

chimchiminey · 17/08/2024 08:00

@Endoftheroad12345 how lovely for you both!!

Mine is a sad one…

I got in to a relationship at just 16 with a guy I met at the library in a town quite a way away. I really, really liked him but unbeknownst to me my mother warned him off. I found out I was pregnant a few weeks later, my parents disowned me and I was immediately kicked out. I had no way of contacting him and only found out years later he had repeatedly been to my parents house trying to get my contact details. Such cruel people.
I raised our daughter on my own, tried to find him with friends reunited and fb and discovered he sadly died quite young, without knowing he was a father. DD is an amazing woman, incredibly successful in her field and when I look at her eyes they are his. I wish with all my heart we could have been a family.

Endoftheroad12345 · 17/08/2024 08:16

@chimchiminey that is so sad. Why on earth didn’t your parents tell him? If they were going to kick you out the least they could have done was let someone else look after you.

How long ago was that? It’s striking to me how possible it was to completely lose touch with people in the pre-internet pre-cellphone era. I’m still connected with people I worked with in 2007 in London via Facebook and Linkedin but I had totally lost contact with all my German friends from 98/99.

DP and I whatsapp and facetime constantly - - our record is a 6 hour call 😂 In the 90s I didn’t even have an email address and long distance phone calls would have bankrupted us!

H112 · 17/08/2024 08:30

Endoftheroad12345 · 17/08/2024 05:26

I was 17 and and exchange student from NZ a little village in Germany. He was in my class and we kissed on new year’s eve 1998/99. Three weeks later I left to go home to NZ … he wrote me a letter saying he was going to save up and come and visit me but my mum was so strict I knew I wouldn’t be allowed a boy to stay so I never wrote back and we never had contact again. I thought of him now and then over the years and when Facebook launched I looked him up but I could see he was married so I never made contact.

In 2022 my marriage to abusive exH was ending and I got a linkedin message from my old flame. By some miracle, I was visiting Europe on a work trip (from NZ) and he also had a work trip to Brussels on the same day I had a conference. We went out for dinner on 14 November 2022 and it was as if no time had passed, I now understand the idea of “coup de foudre”, it was as if I’d been struck by lightening. Nothing happened between us and I had to catch the early Eurostar to London the next day and I cried the whole way, thinking I’d never see him again.

I ended my marriage once and for all when I got home, thinking that nothing would ever happen with high school old flame but I deserved someone who looked at me the way he did (as opposed to dishing out emotional and physical abuse the way my ex did).

On Valentine’s day 2023 he sent me flowers and I flew to meet him in New York in May 2023 and he met me at JFK where we kissed for the first time in 24 years. We are so happy and planning the rest of our lives together.

It sounds like the plot of a movie doesn’t it? I love telling our story. Two years ago I was so sad and trapped on such a miserable marriage - I would never have dreamed I would be so lucky to meet (or re meet) to love of my life in such an unexpected way.

This is just beautiful. I got my happy ending after a horrific relationship too. How lucky we are xxx