I’ll tell you a little story.
My first love was a girl we’ll call Sarah. She and I dated on and off for about three years, and then finally it went past the point of repair. I moved out of town and sort of moved on, but I never forgot about her. Had dreams about her all the time.
I knew alittle of what went on with her after that. She went through a rough patch, she had some bad times, and she lived with a former best friend of mine. In fact, when I got married, she showed up to the wedding with the best friend as a date (they were both invited. Incidentally, I have always suspected she was sleeping with him while we were dating, but never knew for sure.)
Despite all this, my stupid brain had connected her with a more innocent time, a happier time for me. When times got bad - and living with chronic depression, this was often - my thoughts always turned to her and what could have been.
Then I heard from someone that she got married. I was simultaneously crushed and elated. Crushed for obvious reasons, but elated because her last name was going to change. As soon as she put that ring on, she may as well be dead to me, since I’d have no way of finding her at that point. I had no idea who she was marrying, didn’t know where they were going to live, so she was finally no longer “out there”.
Then, years later, in August of 1999, I’m sitting at my computer at work, checking my Yahoo mail, and there’s a message from her. Out of the blue. Nothing special, just a “Hey, how are you doing! What’s up! I’m married and have a kid now!”
I literally felt like I’d been punched in the gut.
I left work early because I was so shaken up. I now knew who she was, where she was. Her husband had photos up I could look at. I wrote back something kind of noncommittal, as I was still a little thrown by this. She wrote back with, “It’s great hearing from you!”
Then she continued with, “Hey, do you think it would be okay if I called you some time?”
By then I had found my feet and said, “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea. To be honest, I still have a lot of feelings about you that should probably stay unresolved.” She never wrote back.
When my mom died last October I emailed her to let her know, since she and my mom had gotten along well when we were dating. No reply, which was fine.
To say you have nothing to lose is wrong. Though I never fooled myself into not thinking about her after she got married, I didn’t need that particular person coming back from the past. I didn’t need my mind to get back on that track.
I doubt she had anything other than saying hello in mind when she emailed. But for me it fucked my head, tore open a scab, rebooted a completely faulty operating system, and made me mix metaphors with reckless abandon.
Don’t drop into a person’s life after several years and say, “Hey! Check me out! Remember when we used to sleep together!?” Maybe the guy’s lonely and pining for you. But maybe he’s trying to get on with his life. Maybe he’s already gotten on with his life.
If you absolutely MUST do something, and you own a web site, put a personal remembrance of the guy on it, and remark that it would be cool to hear from him again. If he’s pining for you, trust me, he knows how to use Google too. He’ll get in touch. But you can’t walk into someone’s life after three years and expect that there’s nothing to be lost by doing so. Unless you’re Meg Ryan and he’s a handsome actor and Nora Ephron writes your life, there are considerable problems that can crop up.
