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.
This. Sure, you had chemistry, but you didn't even have a romantic relationship then. Take care of your wife. Fall back in love with her. Speaking from experience, comrade.
Speaking from experience, comrade.
That was one of my favorite posts of all time.
You have a crush on an idealized person that existed a decade ago.
I'm sure this is true. I'm certainly not the person I was then. Unfortunately facts and logictm don't seam to be a big help.
Oh and the icing on that cake is that we are both Polly and would have been fine keeping our primary partners but they are both monogamous.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Thanks botty buddy. One of these days I'll learn to post those direct
I know it's not love, just a crush and one on some who doesn't even really exist. Wasn't familiar with the word but Limerence is pretty spot on except I know it was reciprocated way back then and fortunately these feeling mostly come in waves so it's not something I have to deal with all the time.
Researchers Willmot and Bentley note that there is a consistent correlation between limerence and those with anxiety, depression, and substance use.
Couldn't be me
I wasn't needed. I wasn't someone to this person solely for the purpose to console them, to comfort them, to heal their damaged psyche from a traumatic childhood.
Holy shit do I feel that. Hell that may even be a big part of it. My dumb ass always fell for the most broken people, she might have been the first/only person I was ever interested in who wasn't just a bundle of trauma and mental health problems.
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.”
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."
it never leaves. they squeezed your heart and the finger prints won't disappear. maybe writing a letter to her would help. maybe it wouldn't. i don't know, i've never been married.
Everyone has one, it’s normal. 10 years is a long time. I was a Romney republican 10 years ago lol. This person is a stranger to you.
Love is a workhorse man. It’s not always sexy. Usually not tbh.
Cosmic levels of synchronicity, this happened to me this week! Also had ridiculous bouts of synchronicity happen right before and right after I contacted her, including having the following songs play in succession:
"I don't know if you got a man or not..."
"...you know how long I've been on ya? Since Prince was on Apollonia....Don't act like I never told ya"
(I told her I liked her 18 years ago, then I "got over it" until I wasn't anymore)"oh suza-nna"
(self explanatory)"for 10 years, we've been on our own"
(haven't talked to her since 2015)And right after I contacted her, I clicked on an article which turned out to be written by a girl who looks just like her
There's more but the synch was so wild I can't even list all of itonly reason I didn't get over her after 2005, was because she sent me texts in 2011 where she described how her academic career wasn't going well, and she came off as very emotionally vulnerable. In HS she was a straight A+ student, very "non-neurotic", never showed any sort of emotional distress, etc.
I think the contrast against her usual self, and the fact that she confided in me, made me start liking her again. She also asked me to stay overnight at her dorm once, and I couldn't understand if that was ever intended to be a romantic invitation or not, and I was afraid to ask (I ended up not going though)
I just found out she's been going steady for almost 10 years (basically the same date when I stopped talking to her), met the guy in 2014, and they're getting married this year.I don't think I actually like her anymore, after talking to her. I like the version of her that used to exist. She sounds different and acts different. Haven't actually seen her yet but I'm almost certain she looks different too (not talking about just age). But I keep regretting the past and thinking about how things might've been different if I'd acted. And how she might've turned out different if those events had unfolded. Then again maybe I'm just in wishful thinking mode and all our interactions were totally platonic from her perspective
Another possible synchronicity: I knew a guy in 2021. Very close friend relationship based on same interests. He was super schizo and flighty. He cut me off in Feb 2022. This year at the end of Jan 2024, (almost 2 years exact) he got back in touch with a mutual friend (not me though, and didn't want to talk to me).
Part of the reason for his cutting me off, was that his schizotypal traits were pushed to the limit from a similar situation. He did something in 2021 where he messed with a girl he'd been with long back--she had a boyfriend whom she was about to marry--and she actually came back to him and wanted to be with my friend, and then the boyfriend + all her girlfriends got mad and apparently started stalking him, sending him threats, and supposedly even hacking his computer.
This sent him over the edge and he got super creeped out about even talking to me, or our mutual friends, and he cut us off in 2022. His exlover ended up marrying the guy she had been planning to.Sorry for the blogpost OP
I think yours might be harder because it was more clear there were actually reciprocating feelings. If I knew that the girl never cared about me or ever thought about me/considered me as a possibility in any way, then the feelings would evaporate instantly
sorry to go "this is just like movie" but have you seen in the mood for love? very good movie about this exact feeling
I haven't. Doesn't really seem like my kind of movie but for something "considered to be one of the greatest films of all time" I'll give it shot.
it's one of those movies that's more about the feelings it evokes than the plot. every time the two leads are walking past each other and the slowmo starts and the music kicks in i get goosebumps. just a gorgeous, incredibly evocative movie, the last scene blew my mind the first time i saw it
