I just have to get this off my chest but I can't talk about it too anyone who knows me in real life.

About ten years I started a new job an instantly hit off with a co-worker. We had a ton of similar interests and she was super easy for my anti social self to talk too And holy shit the level of pure chemistry we had, I didn't even know that was possible. Only problem was I was married and she was engaged.

Over the next couple years we managed to keep our hands off each other only because one of us anyways had to stay sober enough to drop the other off and we both knew drunk consent isn't consent. We became the kinda friends that know things about each other no other person does. But things never went farther than the rare nude or a hand that would linger too long in passing.

Once I quit that job we both broke off all contact and I haven't talked to her since. I'm married thirteen years now, last I checked she was married with kids. And yet I still can't get her out of my mind. All of my best dreams are about her. I honestly think that if there was one thing I could fix about my life it would be to go back and make it work with her.

This is a really shitty feeling I haven't been able to get over for ten years. Maybe getting it out there will help and this ain't the kind of shit I could tell anyone in real life.

  • CarbonScored [any]
    ·
    4 months ago

    I'm not saying it wasn't a hecka cool chemistry, but it can be very easy to idealise partners with whom you never actually had a relationship. Because you both never actually explored that, neither of you ever had to find out what aspects about it you would've disliked, or even downright hated.

    From that position, it's very easy to fantasize about how absolutely perfect it all would've been, but this is the 'grass is always greener' problem. The practically certain reality is that it wouldn't have been perfect. It might've been good, but like everything in the world, it would have had its own plethora of issues that you'd hate getting entangled with.

    Nonetheless comrade, I get it. I still fantasize about people I hit it off with years ago, and it feels terribly sad that we never kept up whatever we had going. The phrase that gets stuck in my head:

    For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, “It might have been.”

    • Ithorian [comrade/them, he/him]
      ·
      4 months ago

      For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, “It might have been.”

      Yeah that's about right, one of the last things we said to each other was "maybe in the next life."