THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

The other day a friend of mine and I were chatting away on Facebook when she made a comment that surprised me a bit. She wrote that I may have been the "One That Got Away". Now, we were only 13 years old or so when we dated but her comment, after all these years, still made me giggle and blush a bit. But a little later I started thinking; what happened there? Did I break up with her? Did she break up with me? Did summer come along and we drifted apart? I was going to ask her but she is one of those people who is blessed (cursed?) with one of those horrifyingly long and accurate memories and I was afraid it would turn out I was a gigantic, insensitive, horse's ass at some point. This is not uncommon for me, I am ashamed to say, so I kept my yap shut.

Then that got me thinking, and remembering, some more. Another lovely young lady,with whom I remain friends, had said something similar a few years ago. We had never dated; when one of us was single the other was in a relationship and then vice versa. This went on, back and forth, for several years. But none the less, I had, apparently, gotten away.

This, then, brought about even more of the whole thinking and remembering thing. At one of the several High School reunions I have attended, a third lovely lady mentioned to my wife (the ever beautiful and long suffering "Explorer"), that I had gotten away and broke her heart. Again, a convenient gap in memory keeps me from either confirming or denying.

This all leads me to one inescapable conclusion; for the first 28 years of my life I was one hell of an escape artist. Or was I?

I am not, nor was I ever, a "Ladies Man". Never the "Bad Boy", or "Jock" or the quiet, introspective, "Intellectual" that, at least in my (and Hollywood's) mind, gets the girl, only to dump her, and move on to the next prospective conquest. Nope, not me. I was the guy on the fringe. Not quite funny enough to be the class clown, nor smart enough for the smart clique or the geek clique. I was just, well, me. What was it that made me the one that got away? Beats the hell out of me! I always felt I was the one that got tossed back.

Until the Explorer.

It was a blind date set up by mutual friends. She hated me. I liked her. I was persistent. I had puppy dog eyes. I won her over with my charm and devilish good looks. In reality I think I wore her down to the point where it was easier to date me than put up with the pestering. And here we are 27 years later.

So, there you have it. I'm sure there are lots of reasons why things turn out the way they do. Why some get tossed back or why some get away. And I sure hope no one was expecting me to toss out some possible answers because I still have no idea. But I don't care. I'm the big fish in my little pond and that's the way I like it.