It wasn't really love - the time(s) you dodged a relationship bullet

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A particular date recently got me reminiscing about a boyfriend from long, long ago. I thought I was in love with him and I thought it was reciprocated, till he unceremoniously dumped me without warning.

About 25 years after the dumping, he managed to track me down on line and we exchanged some emails. In the interim, I’d married, and so had he… 3 times. He had 5 kids, 3 of whom didn’t speak to him. His wife at the time had cancer and died shortly after our correspondence started, and within a couple of weeks of her death, he was married again. And within a year, he was divorced again.

Now, either he’d spent all those years pining and regretting that he dumped me, or I managed to avoid the drama that apparently was his life. Either way, WHEW!!!

And he has since ghosted me, or maybe he died - dunno. Other than mild curiosity, don’t care, either.

Do share your tale(s) of the one you’re glad got away.

2

There was a young woman who was in the same business as me. In fact, the first time I met her, in the early 90s, it was my last day at a job where I had put in my notice, and her first day. I was kind of blown away; I found her very attractive, confident and just well put-together. But I noticed she had a big rock on her finger. So I just said hi to her and wished her well at her new job. That was it, or so I thought…

Then I ran onto her at a bar months later. She recognized me as I walked past, literally grabbing my shirt and pulling me toward her. “Hey, I remember you!” she said. Finger bare this time; the engagement was off. We made plans to get together in the near future and I was very optimistic about it. But for whatever reason, the date, meetup, whatever, didn’t happen.

For years after that we kept in touch off and on, either on purpose, or just running into each other by total coincidence several times. We even collaborated on freelance work stuff, and briefly worked together at another company (she changed jobs as often as she changed relationships; she had broken off 3 engagements). But we never dated; partly because I was sort of ‘friend-zoned’ by then, partly because one or the other of us was dating someone else whenever we got back in touch.

Then, toward the end of the 90s, we were both not in a relationship, hanging out, and made plans to go on a vacation together. We decided we’d go as friends at first, but see what might develop naturally. She did warn me, if things did happen, to not get too attached, because she was bad at maintaining relationships. Well, things did happen, and it was a fantastic vacation, we had a great time. I was very happy.

We tried to make it work for a rocky couple months after we got back, but almost as soon as the plane landed back home after the vacation, and reality set in, it was not quite the same as it had been in ‘vacation mode’. She eventually broke up with me. I was a little hurt and disappointed, but I had been warned, so I soon got over it. I realized that she really did me a favor; per the OP title, I had “dodged a bullet”. We not only stayed in touch for a long time after, we became even better friends than we had been, because I didn’t find her quite as intimidating as I had before; having seen behind the curtain somewhat and realizing that behind her well put-together facade, she was just as normal and messed-up as the rest of us. After I got married, Mrs. Solost was a little jealous of our friendship, but the sexual tension was gone by then, and I really wanted nothing more than just being friends with her. She eventually married a guy (Mrs. Solost and I went to their wedding) and divorced him a few short years later. That could’ve been me. We eventually lost touch completely. I hope she’s doing well.

3

There were two actually - the only two relationships I actually had other than my husband.( who I’ve been with for 40 years). Both of these relationships happened when we were pretty young ( like I was in high school) which is why I didn’t know some things I found out later .I recently got in touch with one, and the other - well, I knew how to get in touch but he passed away before I actually did. ( More later) One thing, probably the only thing, they had in common was that they are politically very different from me , although that may not have happened had they ( or I :grinning:) not gotten away.

The first one, the one who died , was married to the same person for 36 years until his death. Since we all lived in a very small- townish part of NYC, I tried to find out what happened to him - and it turned out that unknown to me, one of my friends was married to his wife’s brother. And what a bullet I dodged - he apparently wasn’t much interested in working if he didn’t enjoy the job and therefore didn’t have a steady job until he was 40 or so. ( they got married when he was about 22). And it’s not like he was a SAHD all that time. His parents owned a building with 6 or 8 four room apartments and they ended up living in one of those apartments ( across the hall from his family) with four people until the oldest kid was ready for school. At which point he convinced his parents to sell that building and they all moved to the burbs. Together - him , his wife, their kids, his parents and his grandmother. ( The Facebook page with him camping less than an hour from home seemingly every weekend now made sense). He apparently did not get along with any of his in-laws * , was a conspiracy theorist ended who hated the government but did eventually end up working for the IRS and ended up dying from Covid in 2021.

The other one is currently on his third marriage and had an additional 10 year long relationship. Not sure why the two divorces happened - when I talked to him last week, he described falling in love with each of the wives. He also mentioned more than once that he’s old fashioned and thinks “the man should take care of the bills” when he was taking about why he resisted retiring even though medical conditions made it hard for him to work. Me earning a lot more than him would absolutely have been an issue- although had I stayed with him, I might not have earned so much because things would have been so different.

* probably at least in part because before they started going out ,his wife told her brother my ex was stalking her and the next thing they knew, she was going out with and eventually married him.

4

I’ve been with my husband since high school (me sophomore, he senior), but my first real boyfriend was in 9th grade (junior high). He was a real catch at that time. He was a new kid to our school and very cute. All the girls had a crush on him. He asked me to the 9th grade dance and gave me my first real kiss afterwards. We hung out for a month or two but he was so much more mature than the other boys. He was pushing for more than I was willing to give, so I broke up with him before school let out for the summer. The next year he went to a different high school and I never saw him again. Twenty years later there was a news story about him. Unbeknownst to me, he had become well-known in the reggae world of music. He moved out to the west coast after he graduated where he had a band. Later he moved back to a large metro city in the mid-west. The news story was about his murder. He answered his door and was shot and killed. A drug deal gone bad.

5

In my mid-20s I fell hard for a woman seven years older than me, divorced with two kids. I’d dated a lot and had a couple of long-term relationships, but the chemistry with “Maggie” was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. We were compatible outside the bedroom, too, and I even got to know her kids a little. But after about three months, she started to cool things down. She didn’t think I was ready for the kind of long-term, quasi-parenting relationship she needed – and she was right.

If we’d moved in together and tried to make it work, it probably would have ended ugly, and her kids would have been hurt.

Plus, I wouldn’t have met the woman who became Mrs Akaj. We’ve had our ups and downs, but been together 32 years.

6

Mine is not as dramatic as some of the others in this thread, but anyway…

In my senior year of university, I dated a woman who was a sophomore at a nearby university. It was rocky, but we did have some good moments. After graduation I moved overseas. We exchanged letters for a while, but I started seeing other people and by the time I came back we had lost touch. Ten years later she finds me on facebook and we exchange some messages. But no chance of getting back together as I was married, she seemed like a bitter unhappy person, and she had changed sexual orientations.

7

Oh, yes.

He was brilliant and very talented. The chemistry was fantastic. We had fun together. But after a year he dumped me – not because he was no longer interested, but because he was afraid of his feelings for me (although I did not find that out until later).

I was disappointed, but stuff happens and life moves on.

He ended up regretting his decision and on a couple of occasions contacted me trying to start things up again. The first time happened several years after our split and about 6 months before he ended up marrying someone else, and the second time was after that marriage failed. On neither occasion was I interested in resuming a romantic relationship with him. I knew that emotionally and mentally he had problems; he really could have benefited from professional help but always refused to seek it.

We’ve kept in touch on and off throughout the years and his life has been one long compendium of poor choices – relationships of all kinds he’s messed up for no good reason, others he doggedly pursued that were never going to turn out the way he wanted, lousy career moves, etc.

Big bullet dodged – I just can’t imagine what it would have been like to have had a ringside seat for all that.

8

In college, a girl from another college specifically made an effort to meet me due to the fact that her last name was my first name. We had been seeing each other for maybe 2-3 months and she started talking about traveling out of state to meet her parents. I had zero interest in that and soon broke up with her. Six months later I heard she had already gotten married. I was in no way ready for marriage at that point. Oh, and she gave me mono.

9

Well in third grade there was Stanley. I hated Stanley.
He chased me around on the playground. Threw dirt at me when I was swinging. Generally was a pest.

I heard one morning he had told other kids we were going steady. Third grade I didn’t really know what that was.
On the playground he was oddly not bugging the crap outta me. So I determined this was a bad thing to be, this going steady stuff.

After lunch we had a short recess period and I looked for the little creep and punched him right in the middle of his face. Hard.
Blood was everywhere, his glasses flew off. He was crying.

I just walked away. Went to class and all was fine til I saw my Daddy standing in the hall with the principal. Yep. Busted.

Gnashing of teeth, threats to be grounded forever and no allowance til his glasses were paid for. “Geez. Sez I. Don’t you people get it, the little creep was stalking and harassing me!”
Of course I didn’t use those words. Daddy understood. I still had to be punished. And I lived through it.

Years later, my dentist was out on Maternity leave and I had a problem. The office recommended a dental practice. I called and they fit me in. I was x-rayed. And put in a treatment room.
The dentist came in. He was behind me at a little desk asking questions. I answered. He said we’re gonna numb you up and I’ll replace that old filling.

I hear goings on behind me. A dental aide came to my left side and said hi.
I look up at the needle coming toward my mouth and there’s Stanley.
I jumped up and said something stupid and ran out as fast as I could.

The last I heard of Stanley was him saying “What’s wrong with her?”

Yep, they always come back to haunt you.

10

The woman I assumed I’d marry back in school, ended up with one of my friends.

But she’s been writing screeds about the godless Socialists who will tax all the True Americans into poverty. So I dodged a bullet there.

11

Not quite as bad, but the guy I mentioned in the OP found religion and was a tad obnoxious about it, plus he became more right wing than when I knew him. That would have been fun…

12

When I was 18 I met a girl and we both experienced “love at first sight”. We spent every minute we could together. There was only one snag, she was engaged.

She broke off the engagement but her mother was furious! Her fiancé was rich, I wasn’t. Her mom did everything she could to interfere with our relationship.

It was 1976. Greyhound bus lines had a special. For $76 you could travel one way (east or west) for a certain number of days. I got on a greyhound in Pittsburgh and rode to Sacramento, California to visit a friend of the family and clear my head.

My friends In Sacramento lined up a job for me and my plan was to live there permanently. Then I got notification that Western Union had something for me. My “ex” gf sent me $$ for airfare to Pittsburgh along with a note saying her mom was now fine with our relationship.

It was a lie. I flew home, she picked me up and admitted the lie. I was freaked and broke up with her. For years after she married she continued a relationship with my mom for some reason.