You know those guys we idolized in late middle school and high school? The ones who grow from cute to handsome and sweet to heartbreakers in the span of a summer? We've all had one. They are the ultimate crush. Maybe you never had the courage to even speak to them. Maybe you were the brace-faced girl in the friend zone. Maybe he went for football and you went into drama and your worlds could not collide.
Every girl has had one of these. Mine was my friend since about 4th grade and he always got back at the boys who did me wrong but never tried to do so much as even hold my hand. He was...and still is adorable and crush-worthy. We stayed friends in high school but he was the guy who was "too cool" for sports, dances and social events. Such a rebel, eh? We exchanged glances and simplistic conversations but we never really flirted much.
When my parents split up and I moved out of state to be with my mom, I never got a real goodbye with him. I always regretted that. My BFF told me he'd ask about me from time to time but this was just before the dawn of Myspace and Facebook so if you didn't have an AIM chat, you had nothing. When Facebook did become a must I instantly found him. He'd stayed in the same town, and became devastatingly handsome. When he accepted my friend request I had just gotten married and moved to a new state.
We didn't talk much. More of a "Hi, hello, how are ya?" I still visited my hometown often so there was always that "Let's grab a drink," vague invitation from time to time. I never thought much of anything. I was very happily married. Occasionally my mind wandered down the "what if," "maybe," and "should have" area but other than that, nothing.
A few years ago when I'd also found the power of Instagram he saw pictures of a trip home and mentioned my parents. He'd remembered my mom and dad throwing various events, birthday parties, Halloween parties, chaparoning dances. I was still working off the baby weight and not remotely confident. He was engaged to be married the following year. We'd missed an opportunity and said a "Maybe, next summer, " and that was it.
About 8 months later, he messaged me on Facebook and asked when we'd be in town. He asked how I was and we had a full on conversation. We talked about my job, the kiddo, his work, his fiance, the upcoming wedding and the normal stuff. Then he told me he'd had a crush on me in high school. Butterflies. This is 16 years later and this guy says, "I was into you," and it's like being fourteen and getting a Valentine from him.
It was nice to know. He asked if we could meet up and I didn't think anything of it. I jumped at the chance. I could apologize for not saying a better goodbye and get some closure. I could see him in person and we could catch up. My first suggestion was meeting up at the park so he could meet my daughter and husband, and I could meet his fiance. He told me she traveled for work a lot and he wasn't kid friendly. He asked if just I could get away for dinner or a drink.
Now the circumstances under which my parents divorced were very vague for anyone not in our family. And I felt like I should explain to him, given our elementary school friendship. I told him I'd let my husband know and we could plan. I hate Facebook messenger so I gave him my number so he could text.
After a few days, the text messages became rather flirtacious. And at first, it's flattering and you feel like it's a compliment but then I realized that I was being a little naive. It dawned on me that I was his mid-life-almost-thirty-about-to-get-married crisis. He came to me to escape his immediate reality.
I kind of swept it all under the rug and just kept things under wraps because I wanted to see him. My parents divorced really messed up my teen years beyond normal stresses (that'll be a book one day, trust me!). I needed this...vindication, or a chance to just talk to someone about what happened. We kept planning to meet and talking and then a month before I was scheduled to arrive in my home town and a few weeks after he and his new wife tied the knot, he disappeared.
He blocked me and my BFF on Facebook and Instagram and stopped texting me. And then I got mad. This dreamboat, this heartthrob and the crush of my childhood turned into a slimy, skeezy guy! I knew I wouldn't see him when we visited and after a few days of feeling completely rejected I realized this was for the best. Maybe I would have seen him and gotten into an uncomfortable situation. What if I was keeping it casual and he grazed my leg or something. That is how affairs start in the movies. I could've ended up a Lifetime special.
Then I started whirling around all of this scenarios and I said, "But I'd never cheat on my husband! We have a kid! He's my person! My one love!" And then I realized that it wasn't about my marriage. It was about his. He was projecting all of his insecurities and issues making me think I'd asked for this, I condoned being treated like someone you can just have at your disposal. In a passive way, I did just watch it all happen.
I wanted to believe in the romance of the crush. I wanted the fantasy. You build these people up in your minds and they become untouchable. It's horrible when they turn into normal, typical, scum.
It wasn't until a week before my vacation I heard from him. He pretended to be concerned that he missed his chance. I called him out on blocking me saying that sent a pretty clear message that we weren't going to have any kind of friendship. He blew it off saying he was taking a Facebook hiatus because he used it for work. Well, he lied again. He told me he wanted to meet me. We'd planned to grab a drink.
The day before we were scheduled to meet he text me all day claiming he almost couldn't wait, asking if I could meet him that evening instead but we had plans. The day had finally come and I was a little nervous. I sent him a text and he didn't respond. I didn't stress. It wasn't until right around the time he told me he'd message me to pick a bar that I knew he was blowing me off. I just didn't hear from him.
It was a big hit to my ego, I won't lie. I'd kind of felt betrayed by my younger self for letting me believe he was someone special all these years. And I was annoyed at myself for being surprised by it all. After I few weeks, I brushed the dust off and rebuilt my self esteem a little. I didn't want to let him weigh on me so much.
It was two months later, after I'd deleted his number and forgotten, assuming that he'd never text me again, that he text me on a random Friday morning. My BFF told me to keep my guard up and not let him in. I kind of just thought it was funny. I called him out on standing me up, and he blew it off. This would be the norm. And then I thought, well I can play the game and see how long the charade lasts, read the fake promises that we'll see each other and let him think I'll just be around always. Or, I can tell him it's not okay.
When you get those text messages, those ones that just make you smile and cringe at the same time, you have great plans on what you'd like to say. Women could write books on the conversations they've strategically planned in their minds that never come to fruition. So when his intro back into my life was "I had a dream about you, and I missed you," I wanted to text back:
"Well, you can keep dreaming. I've always missed you and I just wanted to talk to you about something important to me, not fantasize about what we never had and what will never happen. I really wanted to see you and you blew me off. So hold on to those dreams of me. You're going to miss me for a long time."
But instead, I just kind of responded to everything politely and laughed. We see all these lives via Facebook: The vacations, the engagements, the new pets, the births, these happy moments. Not in any of those pictures would I guess he was a scumbag looking for an escape from his new wife. And I just felt bad. I felt bad for his new wife, because if he was coming on to me via text, even in non-"sexting" ways, who knows what else he was up to. I felt bad for him, feeling like he couldn't just be grateful for what he had. And I felt great. Because as much as I complained, as bad as things have been in the past...I didn't have room for this kind of bullshit in my life. And he did.
