Tall, dark, a bit exotic, and she started modeling at 16. She was a pitcher heading to the Bigs.* I was a right fielder so deep in the Minors** that selling insurance was staring me in the face.***
Years later, a so-called friend said, “Cindy liked you and didn’t know why you didn’t ask her out.”
“And you didn’t tell me this in 1972?”
So, where did you miss out?
*, **, and ***: These are baseball references. I have been accused of leaving out context for the international audience. “The Bigs” is the Major League. Minor League baseball is quite a bit under that, statuswise. Selling insurance is what many Minor Leaguers end up doing.
There was a girl who had a crush on me back in high school. I pretty much sensed it and was even thinking about asking her to the senior prom, but did not. That was stupid of me. I was influenced by a friend who loudly talked about how ridiculous the whole thing was and how he wasn’t going. He happened to say this in the presence of both of us at the day I was actually planning to ask.
I don’t think much would have come of it; there were many things about her that made me wary. Her life crashed and burned the next year (got pregnant and dropped out of school) and I used to think she would have been better off if I had asked her. But though I was attracted to her offbeat hippyesque philosophy, it also put me off enough that I didn’t want a real relationship.
I’m certain she would have slept with me if I asked, but I was never that type; I wanted a relationship and I couldn’t see her as a girlfriend.
Cindy could have asked *you *out. Oh, wait, 1972. I wasn’t around, but I’m guessing that guys were expected to be mind-readers back in those days, a bit more than today? At least the world is improving in some ways.
A general, but obvious, announcement: Ladies, if you haven’t figured it out already, guys are idiots. Bang us over the head with the Obvious Stick because we really, truly, don’t get it.
ETA: And were distracted by something shiny on the off chance we were.
Despite being at various points in my life very very shy and/or nerdy, and certainly having felt out of various people’s leagues, for pretty much all of the crushes I’ve had, I’ve made at least some sort of attempt at making my feelings known.
I’m sort of glad you started this thread, because it’s made me realize I’ve always been a lot braver than I give myself credit for.
Of all the ones that have “gotten away” I’ve managed to track down and get closure with all but one.
In the 7th grade the guy I liked kept coming up to me all the time to tell what I am fairly sure were highly exaggerated stories about his interactions with all the musicians I liked.
The girl I liked that same year told me I looked sexy in my costume for a show, and also had noted to me earlier that I had ‘the biggest boobs and the biggest butt’ in the class.
And it’s like they don’t even notice meeeeeeee~! :rolleyes:
Most of my early “relationships” were ones that got away. I’d get a crush on someone, we’d become friends, we’d start hanging out together and doing things, then the friendship would fade away for whatever reason. And then months or even years later, I’d find out that they’d thought we were dating (and sometimes even in a full-blown relationship) while I thought we were just hanging out, and they wondered why I never made a move on them.
I’m a little better at figuring it out now, and definitely better at acting upon it instead of being so timid.
Betsy and I were cooks in our dorm kitchen. One dull night, she had her back to me and her hands behind her. I took a hand full of mashed potatoes, and smeared it into her unsuspecting hand. She turned around, looked at me and smiled, reached inside my shirt and smashed them against my chest. She looked at me like “what ya gonna do now?” Why I didn’t reach inside her shirt is beyond me. Damn. Later, I realized “hey, she sometimes hugs me from behind”. I graduated first, moved outside the state and back again the same year. I called her up to ask her out, but before I got around to it, she informed me she was getting married. Damn. Then last spring, I was looking at my classmates account, and she visited my profile three times in a week. Damn. We’re both married to other people, but if only I hadn’t been so blind…
This wasn’t so much the one I didn’t try for as my clueless friends who blew it.
I was in the Navy when I went back to college, so I was older and a tad more worldly than the majority of my classmates. Socially, we just didn’t mesh. I mainly hung out with the other Navy students there, most of whom were married (some of whom I babysat for.) There was one couple, childless and my age, and we spent a lot of time together. The husband and I had the same major, so we had a lot of classes in common and sometimes studied together. And the three of us would go out to eat or to the movies and such.
Anyway, fast forward to my graduation (I took on extra classes so I could graduate a semester ahead of my friend.) The three of us had just finished our going-away dinner and the wife said “You know, we should have introduced her to “Joe” - they’d have gotten along great!”
You wait till the night before I leave to tell me you could have fixed me up with someone? :mad:
What’s even worse, we stayed in touch (even now) and a few years later when I was at the Pentagon and they were in Norfolk, they did fix me up. This guy they knew rode his motorcycle all the way from Norfolk to my place outside of Baltimore. We were going to have dinner and see a movie, then he was going to crash in my spare room. Somewhere between his arrival and me retreating to my bedroom, he decided to confess that he really shouldn’t be in Maryland. He was out on bail after being charged with attempted murder for hire - apparently his boss wanted him to off the boss’ wife or some such… :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
Anyway, he didn’t kill me, he left the next day, and a few days later, I got a letter (a letter?? no phone call??) from these friends telling me not to have anything to do with this guy. Fast forward a year or so, I get a letter with an unfamiliar name and the return address of a prison in Rhode Island. My “date” ratted on his boss, got a reduced sentence in an out-of-state jail and a new identity, plus he’d found religion along the way and he wanted to tell me. Yep, that one got away…
Almost 30 years ago I was traveling in Australia by myself, the post college see the world thing, and met a guy in one of the hostels. We clicked right away. Talked the whole night, laughed the whole night. The next morning we were heading for the bus in opposite directions and he suggested I should come his way (universal bus pass so easy to change plans) and I didn’t go. At the time I was under the impression that all male friends were just potential sexual relationships and I didn’t have an immediate sexual attraction to him which I thought was required for love.
I’ve always regretted that. He was interesting, he ‘got’ me. And, I could have ended up with a friend even if the romantic connection didn’t evolve.
I think, for me, ‘the one that got away’ tends to be more about friendships I didn’t pursue for whatever reason.
Once upon a time, in a land very far away, I was a senior in college who drank and smoked pot just a bit too much. I would go to this one bar and flirt with the bartender, whose name was Chip, all the time. One night, while I was scamming on some guy who had no interest in me whatsoever, Chip managed to get me to give him my phone number. I was drunk when this happened and had no memory of giving up my digits. But I thought he was hot and talked to him whenever I was in there.
During the same school term, I was taking this Psych class and there was this guy named Chip in my class who was a little sarcastic, but smart, and he would always argue with the professor (in a respectful, polite-debate kind of way). I was intrigued by this guy, but was a bit too shy to go up and start a conversation with him, so after class, I would just bolt to the next thing on my agenda.
One day, my phone rang. It was one of the Chips. First, I had to ask Chip how he got my number. There was a long silence before he informed me that I’d given it to him. It was dawning on him that I wasn’t really into him, just gave him my number because he’d asked me for it. Then he asked me why I never talked to him in our Psych class. Just as it was dawning on me that the smart, hottie bartender at The Union was the same smart, hottie, sarcastic guy in my Psych class, Chip gave up. He said, “Oh. Nevermind…” And I tried to save it before I heard the click, “Oh wait! I just now realized…” :: dial tone:: Too late.
So yeah. I coulda been a contender. But I was generally too drunk and/or stoned at the time to realize/notice that I only knew one guy named Chip. (Hey, he looked totally different in the light of day.) Poor Chip. I wonder for how long he was crushing on me before he realized I hadn’t even really noticed him. (I had noticed him. I was just too stupid to put two and two together and come up with four. And not slick enough to fake it until I’d recovered.)
It involved a friend in college. Over the years I had dated most of her roommates and never noticed that she was also interested. At a party about 6 months after she got engaged I was mildly harrassing her in the kitchen, saying things like “You know you don’t want to marry Jerry. You want to marry me.” She stopped what she was doing, looked me square in the eyes and said “You never asked.”
:eek::smack:
On the plus side, if I’d married Suzeanne I’d never have met my wife. So it was worth it.
