Facebook started out as a college student thing, but it’s fast becoming a place for us ‘mature’ people to reconnect with those from our past. For example, suddenly a bunch of people I went to high school with started showing up there. I’ve been there for business and child monitoring purposes for a year or so. A few months ago a couple of former classmates popped up on my radar, but it wasn’t until a week or so ago that I started seeing a real influx of alumni. It’s been fun, seeing what people have done since high school, looking at pictures of them and their kids and reopening the lines of communication.
And you find out things. Like secret crushes. I’ve been talking with one of my old friends, a fellow band geek who I had a huge crush on in high school. I can remember staring at him in classes we shared just wishing he’d notice me, but being afraid that if he did he’d think I was weird for staring. I didn’t feel like I was even in this boy’s league, as he hung out with the ‘popular’ crowd, so I crushed from a distance. On the occasions that he talked to me, I went home from school on a cloud. Our senior year, there was a time or two that we even had a couple of encounters that might have been considered flirting. But he was dating a popular girl, and I knew there was no way he was interested in me, the oddball chubby chick.
Now, 28 years later, he and I have had the opportunity to catch up with one another, and through our communication I learned a secret. He thought I was attractive in school. In fact he remembers distinctly wanting ot kiss me. Imagine that? We both had a moment of regret that one of us didn’t act upon our feelings. And I think we both wondered what might have happened if we had. We both might be in very different places. But then again, we might not have turned out the same. I suppose things happen and don’t happen for a reason.
