What's your "one that got away" story?

[GodlyWolf 1,678]

Anyone you had hard feelings for but you either missed your opportunity or they simply didn't reciprocate?

[Brony Number 42 9,933]

Yeah, all of them... 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Patriotic Brony 42

[GodlyWolf 1,678]

12 minutes ago, Patriotic Brony 42 said:

Yeah, all of them... 

I only hade one I fell hard for for 8 ish years. Long story short, she "was" a friend and I made it known to her 2 or 3 times that I really liked her. Towards the end she kept giving excuses to not hang out. So we got in an argument haven't spoken since. Shortly after that, I joined the army. I lost all feelings but I still wonder now and then how she's doing. I hope good. Arguments aren't reason enough to wish ill thoughts. 

You'll find the right person someday.

And hopefully I will too.

[Brony Number 42 9,933]

Never accept the friend zone. Ask her out, let her know what you want. If she says she wants to be just friends then tell her you don't need a friend and say good bye.

I was friend zone for years. I finally stopped talking to her. I wasted a lot of time. And don't be the white knight.

[GodlyWolf 1,678]

1 minute ago, Patriotic Brony 42 said:

Never accept the friend zone. Ask her out, let her know what you want. If she says she wants to be just friends then tell her you don't need a friend and say good bye.

Yeah I learned that after the fact 

[Iforgotmybrain 3,518]

Okay here comes an essay. I’ll put a TL;DR at the end. Writing this all out is mostly going to be for me so don’t feel bad if you don’t read it. I wouldn’t read it either.

About 2 years ago, Fall 2021, I was talking to these two guys, we’ll call them Alex and John.

I was single at the time and had met Alex on my college campus, we were the same age, lots of similar interests, and he was so, so sweet. In hindsight he probably treated me better than any past partner I had but I didn’t really realize that at the moment.

John meanwhile wasn’t in college, instead he lived about an hour away and I had met him through an app. He was 2 years younger than me so he was 20 and I was 22. John had a lot of red flags, again, in hindsight. I tend to let my emotions get the best of me when it comes to dating which as we’ll get to, doesn’t usually work out well.

It’s Winter 2021 into Spring 2022, I had been talking to and hanging out with Alex quite a bit, he’d made it quite clear he really wanted us to be like a long term thing. I can’t stress enough just how nice Alex was to me, even if we weren’t official partners or anything he always made sure I felt appreciated and loved.

Anyway, I liked Alex, for sure. But I also really had a thing for John as well, I even liked him more than Alex at the time. I’ll be honest, I can’t really think of a logical reason for the feelings I had towards John. We had a very similar upbringing which might’ve played a big role. But I think it was mostly just emotionally driven. And I kind of hit a crossroad where I needed to be straight with one of them and say “hey, I really like you, you’re great, but I don’t think I’m interested in anything romantic”.

So, what do I decide? After asking my friends and thinking about it I decided to let Alex down and make me and John an official “thing”. Alex took it fairly well, or at least it seemed like he did. He might’ve been more upset over it when not in front of me.

Let’s fast forward a few months, it’s Fall 2022. I’d been with John “officially” for about 8 months or so. With 6 of those 8 months being really, really shitty. Yeah, those red flags I ignored? They sure came back to bite me. I don’t really like trashing any of my ex partners, so I won’t go into specific details, but John had a lot of serious issues I was willfully ignorant of. Or issues that just didn’t show up until we started dating.

We break up, it sucked. But it was actually a lot less sucky then the past 6 months I had spent with him.

We fast forward again to Winter 2022 and I really start to realize what an idiot I was for choosing John over Alex. I basically ignored the perfect partner because I was too emotionally invested in this other person like an idiot.

So I message Alex for the first time in about 5 months. Tell him the whole story and everything, we catch up, and I find out he moved to North Carolina. Oh. Pretty far away from Ohio, fair enough he did mention wanting to move when I last talked to him. And he found a partner. Again, fair enough, I wasn’t surprised.

It was at that point it was really setting in that I let the man who treated me like a king, who was better to me than anyone else in my life, get away. All because I had made a really stupid, emotionally driven decision.

TL;DR: Had to choose between two potential partners, one who was super sweet and one who, in hindsight, had enormous red flags. I picked the wrong one. Regretted it, broke up, and lost out on having one of the nicest guys I’ve ever known as my partner.

[GodlyWolf 1,678]

 

18 minutes ago, Iforgotmybrain said:

Okay here comes an essay. I’ll put a TL;DR at the end. Writing this all out is mostly going to be for me so don’t feel bad if you don’t read it. I wouldn’t read it either.

About 2 years ago, Fall 2021, I was talking to these two guys, we’ll call them Alex and John.

I was single at the time and had met Alex on my college campus, we were the same age, lots of similar interests, and he was so, so sweet. In hindsight he probably treated me better than any past partner I had but I didn’t really realize that at the moment.

John meanwhile wasn’t in college, instead he lived about an hour away and I had met him through an app. He was 2 years younger than me so he was 20 and I was 22. John had a lot of red flags, again, in hindsight. I tend to let my emotions get the best of me when it comes to dating which as we’ll get to, doesn’t usually work out well.

It’s Winter 2021 into Spring 2022, I had been talking to and hanging out with Alex quite a bit, he’d made it quite clear he really wanted us to be like a long term thing. I can’t stress enough just how nice Alex was to me, even if we weren’t official partners or anything he always made sure I felt appreciated and loved.

Anyway, I liked Alex, for sure. But I also really had a thing for John as well, I even liked him more than Alex at the time. I’ll be honest, I can’t really think of a logical reason for the feelings I had towards John. We had a very similar upbringing which might’ve played a big role. But I think it was mostly just emotionally driven. And I kind of hit a crossroad where I needed to be straight with one of them and say “hey, I really like you, you’re great, but I don’t think I’m interested in anything romantic”.

So, what do I decide? After asking my friends and thinking about it I decided to let Alex down and make me and John an official “thing”. Alex took it fairly well, or at least it seemed like he did. He might’ve been more upset over it when not in front of me.

Let’s fast forward a few months, it’s Fall 2022. I’d been with John “officially” for about 8 months or so. With 6 of those 8 months being really, really shitty. Yeah, those red flags I ignored? They sure came back to bite me. I don’t really like trashing any of my ex partners, so I won’t go into specific details, but John had a lot of serious issues I was willfully ignorant of. Or issues that just didn’t show up until we started dating.

We break up, it sucked. But it was actually a lot less sucky then the past 6 months I had spent with him.

We fast forward again to Winter 2022 and I really start to realize what an idiot I was for choosing John over Alex. I basically ignored the perfect partner because I was too emotionally invested in this other person like an idiot.

So I message Alex for the first time in about 5 months. Tell him the whole story and everything, we catch up, and I find out he moved to North Carolina. Oh. Pretty far away from Ohio, fair enough he did mention wanting to move when I last talked to him. And he found a partner. Again, fair enough, I wasn’t surprised.

It was at that point it was really setting in that I let the man who treated me like a king, who was better to me than anyone else in my life, get away. All because I had made a really stupid, emotionally driven decision.

TL;DR: Had to choose between two potential partners, one who was super sweet and one who, in hindsight, had enormous red flags. I picked the wrong one. Regretted it, broke up, and lost out on having one of the nicest guys I’ve ever known as my partner.

Yes I read the whole thing and honestly I do feel bad for this Alex. But it's only human to want the one we are invested it, but what when want and what we need aren't always the same thing. Trust me when I say I get how your feeling and I do hope that John works through his issues eventually.

 

In high school, I was a sought after candidate for alot of the girls in my friend group and I knew it. Honestly younger me needed to be humbled lol. It was because I had options, that I always picked the ones who turned out to be not good for me.

 

I see it now as an opportunity to grow and mature. You're wiser because of your mistakes. 

 

Trust me I did alot of growing up after high school lol. People do change and for those we should have taken but are no longer an option. All we can do is hope they live a happy life and also hope we may also find happiness. 

Edited September 8, 2023 by GodlyWolf82

[Clawdeen 12,110]

Yeah but it worked out for me in the end. Each of the individuals ended up being really toxic not great people. At the time it didn’t feel great being rejected but the universe had a way of letting me know I really dodged a bullet by not getting involved with those people. 

[GodlyWolf 1,678]

 

12 minutes ago, Clawdeen said:

Yeah but it worked out for me in the end. Each of the individuals ended up being really toxic not great people. At the time it didn’t feel great being rejected but the universe had a way of letting me know I really dodged a bullet by not getting involved with those people. 

Yeah often times when they get away, it usually turn out that you dodged a bullet. 

 

Plus, how happy could you truly be if they think they settled for you when they think they could get better. It shows that they aren't looking for love, but what there twisted idea of love is. 

 

You truly did dodge bullets 

Edited September 8, 2023 by GodlyWolf82

[Clawdeen 12,110]

1 minute ago, GodlyWolf82 said:

Yeah often times when they get away, it usually turn out that you dodged a bullet. 

Plus, how happy could you truly be if they think they settled for you when they think they could get better. It shows that they aren't looking for love, but what there twisted idea of love is. 

You truly did dodge bullets 

Yeah often times when they get away, it usually turn out that you dodged a bullet. 

 

Plus, how happy could you truly be if they think they settled for you when they think they could get better. It shows that they aren't looking for love, but what there twisted idea of love is. 

 

You truly did dodge bullets 

Yeah they ended up being bad people. 

[GodlyWolf 1,678]

I don't know how my "one" turned out. I still wonder but I don't loose sleep over it.

We will find our "ones" someday.

[Twitchy-Tremor 281]

The first person I liked was my best friend. We hung out almost every day. Then she got this jerk boy friend. He didn’t wanna hang out with me or any other of her friends and I tried to tell her and she got mad and then I’d only seen them making out in the halls. 
recently I looked at her Facebook to see what happened to her because a topic on here and she’s married and has a kid now and hates lgbt+ and is racist and completely different then that friend I use to have. It actually made me cry I didn’t care about my feeling like that I just wanted my friendship back but I don’t think I can put up with her being like that.

[GodlyWolf 1,678]

 

34 minutes ago, Twitchy-Tremor said:

The first person I liked was my best friend. We hung out almost every day. Then she got this jerk boy friend. He didn’t wanna hang out with me or any other of her friends and I tried to tell her and she got mad and then I’d only seen them making out in the halls. 
recently I looked at her Facebook to see what happened to her because a topic on here and she’s married and has a kid now and hates lgbt+ and is racist and completely different then that friend I use to have. It actually made me cry I didn’t care about my feeling like that I just wanted my friendship back but I don’t think I can put up with her being like that.

Well hopefully you find peace with someone better. You deserve it. She showed that he mattered more and that politics mattered more than friendship. People who put other people the just met before their friends and family and let politics determine who they can be friends or close with are not worth it and you dodged a bullet. It gives you the opportunity to find someone who actually cares about you and loves you for you and who you are 

Edited September 9, 2023 by GodlyWolf82

[DubWolf 16,621]

Yes I do. Nothing good comes from talking about it though. Am I glad that happened? I don’t know.

[SparklingSwirls 21,261]

I’ve had various irl crushes but two stand out specifically. The first one was my coworker and the second one was my housemate, so… not the best situations to be in. Familiarity I guess? I waited until I left the job and left the house respectively before I asked them out. Neither of them seemed to handle it all that well, honestly… they didn’t want to give clear answers. Well I learned my lesson with the first guy (we’re still friends) and didn’t push with the second (haven’t heard from him since). Revealing how I felt was terrifying but I knew I had to do it because I would have regretted it if I didn’t. And I try to keep the perspective that feelings/emotions are normal and we all have them.

But when you find someone who feels the same about you as you feel about them… it makes taking the chance completely worth it. All those rejections before? They no longer matter. We all deserve to be with someone who returns our feelings.

[GodlyWolf 1,678]

23 minutes ago, SparklingSwirls said:

I’ve had various irl crushes but two stand out specifically. The first one was my coworker and the second one was my housemate, so… not the best situations to be in. Familiarity I guess? I waited until I left the job and left the house respectively before I asked them out. Neither of them seemed to handle it all that well, honestly… they didn’t want to give clear answers. Well I learned my lesson with the first guy (we’re still friends) and didn’t push with the second (haven’t heard from him since). Revealing how I felt was terrifying but I knew I had to do it because I would have regretted it if I didn’t. And I try to keep the perspective that feelings/emotions are normal and we all have them.

But when you find someone who feels the same about you as you feel about them… it makes taking the chance completely worth it. All those rejections before? They no longer matter. We all deserve to be with someone who returns our feelings.

I 100% agree with this. Yes it might really suck at the time, but atleast you will have your answer and you can move on from there instead of being trapped in the thought of "what if" for years to come. The hurt is a little more, but the duration is less. 

[Dreambiscuit 8,024]

I met someone fleetingly when I was quite a bit younger. I was in Hawaii and buying shaved ice from a vendor in the International Marketplace. I had that ‘click’ of familiarity with the vendor and felt like I knew the guy forever, even though we’d just met. I was clumsy (dropped my purse on the ground while trying find exact change and getting my ankle caught in the strap) and when he handed my shaved ice I shamelessly (and deliberately) grabbed his hand as I took it from him, almost dropping my frozen treat altogether.

It was just one of those spontaneous moments when there’s distinct chemistry but it all happens so fast that it slips away before anyone can marshal their thoughts on what to do about it. In my case, I was just becoming ‘of age’ and had no experience with showing interest in others or anyone showing interest in me. So I didn’t know how to handle things. The moment passed and this guy and I went our separate ways, never to meet again. But even now, all these years later I occasionally wonder what might have happened if I’d been prepared for it. I have no regrets but there’s always that lurking question mark in the back of the mind.

If I had it to do over, I’d have put my cards on the table and asked him more about the intricate art of ice shaving…or when he got off work… or if he would give a bewildered mainland girl a personal tour of the best spear-fishing coves…or whether he’d be interested in sailing off into the sunset on a surfboard built for two…or at the very least I could have offered to share my shaved ice with him. I mean, why not? All I had to lose was a lifetime of wondering. C’est la vie.