OK, I’ve been thinking. There are people from my past - friends and previous SO’s - who I really am curious about. What has become of them over the years? What has their life been like? Do they even remember me?
For the most part this is pure curiosity, but to be perfectly honest, there is an element of - how do I put it? - revenge, erotisism, to this curiosity. Did they turn out sucessful? Do the women (I’m a guy) ever wonder if things had turned out differently?
My question is, has anyone ever contacted (or been contacted by) old (no contact for 10+ years) friends/lovers out of the blue? How did it turn out? Do you regret doing it it or was it a great thing for you to do?
Let me know.
LM
I contacted a guy with whom I was madly in love in high school about two months ago. I hadn’t seen him in about 10 years. We had gone out briefly…but even way back then I knew I was just part of the rounds he was making at school and that my feelings for him were way stronger than his feelings were for me. For some reason, over the years, I had put this guy on a pedestal…I dreamed about him constantly…and in any relationship I had I wished to feel the purity of love that I had felt for him for whoever I was with at the time. But it never happened. Finally, after much consideration, I contacted this object of my affection…hoping to be reunited with my soul-mate (as I had built him up to be). Instead I realized that he was nothing special (and a bit of a jerk to boot)…but at least I have closure and my dreams have been free of the illusion of perfect love in the form of him ever since. Had I not contacted him I fear I would’ve never gotten over it and would’ve ended up weeping over him on my death bed.
I’m not sure if this was the kind of answer you were looking for…maybe I should have discussed the actual encounter…but the actual encounter seems so unimportant to me just now.
I run into old boyfriends all the time. It’s a small town with only so many places to hang. (I wasn’t dating 10 years ago, though.)
Some act weird, some ignore me, some have to be nice because we’re at a wedding or something. None ever was anxious to start up again. Only one I really miss, but he’s got someone new and I won’t mess with that.
I was contacted a few years ago by a totally psycho ex-boyfriend who tracked me down over the Net after about 10 years. It was NOT a pleasant experience…he started out apologising for how shittily he treated me, and how he understood exactly what he had put me through etc., etc., and then ended up asking if I’d like to exchange photos.
(shudder)
Stompy
and sent him the link to SDMBs. He started posting here, so I have started a welcome thread for him. We have only been back in contact for about four or five days, but I don’t see how it could ever go badly. He was friends with both my brother and me, and we are all thrilled to be back in contact after over thirty years.
That was me forgetting to clear the cookies, dang it! Sorry folks.
I guess what I’m looking for is how do people feel about being tracked down? There are a lot of old buddies who I would have no qualms about contacting if I still had their phone number - it’s explaining how I found them after they moved to 2 different states and got married 3 times, etc. “It was easy enough, I looked in the alumni directory and saw where you lived and then I looked up your phone number in Yahoo…” This sounds creepy to me. Especially if I were saying this to a woman. Do you do it and risk completely freaking someone out, or do you just put it out of your mind?