becomingkate

 Sorry to be a post whore, but I just came across something that kind of took me back and I felt like writing about it.

I had this friend about 4-5 years ago who I met through a playgroup I was a part of with my son.  I was probably closest to her out of the whole group.  She was what I considered cool.  She homeschooled, was very relaxed with her kids, very free spirited.  She took them camping and out for adventures.  She had 2 teenage girls and two kids who were about 3 and 5 at the time.

I developed a pretty serious crush on this woman.  I think she just embodied everything I wanted to be and I looked up to her.  I was having a yahoo messenger conversation with her one night when we were talking about women and stuff (I knew she was bi, I think, and I identified as bi too but wasn't out) I told her I'd had previous relationships with women and that I was still interested in women and that my husband knew and was open to me pursuing that.  Back then we had a very different relationship-we were considering open marriage, but we never worked out the logistics so we dropped it.  Since then I've been with one woman that my husband knew about and actually helped me get together with, but that was weird when it came down to it, and I haven't thought about trying again ever since.

I told her I was having a hard time finding women who were okay with me being married, blah blah blah and she said "Well, I could take you out".  I said "On a date date, or just as friends?" and she said "A date..maybe more than one"

I pretty much lost my mind then. I had been hoping for years to develop a relationship with a woman that was friendship first, not immediately intimate.

A couple days later, I was asking her (again, online) where she thought we should go on our date and she essentially said she had changed her mind.  (I didn't save that conversation. Go figure.)

I was devastated. And my poor husband, in the background probably thinking "Uh, what about me? I'm right here" tried to support and comfort me as best he could because he knew how much I liked this woman not just as a potential date but as a person.

Of course things fell apart from there; it was incredibly awkward when we'd show up at the same playdates, and we tried to hang out a couple times just us as friends, but it was too weird.  The last time we talked, she was going to "pencil me in" for a playdate with our kids and I never heard from her again.

Up until recently I still had her on facebook.  I just never got around to removing her and I never saw her posts so it didn't occur to me to remove her until a few days ago.  Just now, all I was doing was looking for my word processing program on my computer so I could jot some things down and I found the saved file of our conversation.  I'm kind of glad I saved it.  It's kind of like a blow to my heart though, all over again.  I remember the intense feelings I had for her, the elation when she said she'd take me out on a date! and the devastation when she told me she'd changed her mind.

Oh well.  I spend too much time thinking about past relationships and probably not enough time thinking about my current relationship.  I guess I just miss the excitement, the strong feelings.  Everything just feels so blah now.

I just got back in touch with a former coworker.  It's a long, sad story but let's just say we let some harmless flirting go a little too far--not physically, but emotionally.  We still kept in touch by e mail after I left that job (partially because of him, but mostly because I needed more of a challenge).  He dropped off the face of the earth a couple times, but the last time he did it--about a year ago?--I was sure he was gone forever.  Guess not.  He found me on facebook a few days ago.  At first I thought he was just going to add me just to have friends but then he contacted me and we've had some light, catching-up conversation since then.  I found out he still thinks about me "all the time" but has been dating the same girl for 3 years.  And to be fair, I think about him too, not all the time, but whenever I hear a certain song, or I smell the type of food I used to cook at that job, or the breeze hits me the right way and it reminds me of the nights we used to walk to our cars together after work.  But, not all the time.

I could have ignored him, or even sent him a "sorry, I've moved on" e mail.  But I didn't.  I added him before you could say "glutton for punishment" and posted a gushy hello right on his page.  (I'd had a couple drinks.  I should have sent him a private message.)  He replied by calling me his "little redhead"--right on my page.  I'm sure that raised some eyebrows amongst my facebook friends--a few of which are family.  I still haven't gotten any questions though.  I guess they figure I wouldn't put something so vastly personal on my facebook page if there was something to hide.  They apparently don't know me.

So, here we are.  Do I want to see him again?  Yes.  Am I dying to just kiss him once, just to see what it's like?  Yes.  Am I a horrible person?  I think so.