We all had that one unattainable crush when we were younger... Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you met yours now?
Young Love Lasts
“Had a crush on this girl in grade school (1st/2nd). Playdates, video games, action figures. Life was good.
Bought her a present at a 5&10 because I thought she’d like it. It was a ring. She was ultra embarrassed and ran off. My parents still have not let me forget that. She changed schools (for other reasons) that next year.
Fast forward 14 years. Graduated from undergrad, working for a company in my hometown and working on getting accepted to medical school. Out for drinks one night with friends and who should come by but her?
Beautiful, great taste in music, smiles at my jokes. Smitten.
Fast forward several more years. Gave her a ring again. She did not run away. Happily married several years.”
Never Quite Got There
“When I was in freshman year I had the stupidest little girl crush on this guy in my program. And I had no idea how to express it, so I think I thoroughly creeped him out with my staring and pathetic attempts to get him to have coffee with me and such.
Anyway, that was eight years ago and I’ve really matured as a person since then, I hadn’t even thought of him in years when I ran into him. I was actually excited to find out he worked at a store I was planning to go to, I thought “I can finally have a normal conversation with (crush), he’ll see I’m not a creepy weirdo anymore!”f
Anyway, when I ran into him our conversation went like this:
Me: “Hey (crush), how’s it going?”
Him: “Good thanks, how are you?”
Me: “Good thanks, how are you?”
And then it just spiraled into awkwardness from there… guess some people just bring it out of me!”
It Was Finally Their Time
“Had a crush on her all through freshman and sophomore year. She kissed me at the end of sophomore year. I… failed to reciprocate… basically ran away from her. Extreme social anxiety.
I switched schools after disappearing for the summer(not because of the kiss), but when school started again I walked to her school everyday for half of the year in hopes of having the balls to make a move. Saw her each day. Failed each day.
She obviously got tired of waiting, ended up with another guy, I gave up.
Come end of senior year she shows up at my school to see some guy. Saw me, literally jumped into my arms and forced her phone number on me.
Together 7 years come November. I proposed to her around a week ago.”
A True American Romance
“Sophomore year of college at a state school in NY I was at an underage bar with friends… went to the back patio and saw this guy that I found to be very attractive standing by himself smoking. I walked over to him and I started chatting him up and we hit it off immediately. He came back to the dorm with me that night and we actually did NOT have sex but stayed up all night talking then passed out together in my bed. Long story short–I had gotten out of a long-term relationship a few months earlier and wasn’t ready to get into a new one during my second year of college. We stayed friends but not too long after we met he joined the marines and moved out to California.
Literally 5 years later after he got out of the service and I had already finished grad school and had moved from NY to FL I get a text from my best female friend telling me my brief flame had messaged her on FB (I no longer had a FB) trying to get my phone number. Apparently during the 5 years since we had seen each other his family had relocated to FL just a couple of hours south of me of all places. He was driving cross country from California to move to FL to be closer to them and wanted to stop and see me to catch up (we had been in touch a few times throughout the years via FB) Well–we hit it off again and we’ll be celebrating our 2 year anniversary soon.”
It All Worked Out
We grew up together in a relatively small town where you knew 90% of the people you went to school with. We met in middle school, and we were acquaintances, but I had a huge crush on her. She ended up dating a friend of mine in high school (who ended up being a pro football player, guy was a giant), so obviously I kept my feelings for her to myself out of self preservation.
After high school, she went to Baylor, and I ended up living in Austin. I joined a band because thats what you do when you’re an early 20s dude living in Austin. My band had a monthly gig booked in Waco, which she ended up attending. We chatted, I got her number, and we would go to dinner before my gigs when I was in town. She ended up moving to Austin where she didn’t really know anyone other than myself, so I integrated her into my social circle. We started dating shortly thereafter, and 3 years later, were married.
We’ve now been married for 6 years, have a daughter, and another child on the way. Best coincidence to ever happen to me.”
Separate Worlds, Separate Lives
“We’d gone to school together on a US base in England. 16 years later I ran across her brother online after email and the internet became a thing. Yadda yadda “what ever happened to your sister?”
A few weeks later I was at home in New England get an email from Hawaii where she was a teacher in a small town. Neither of us had married. She was as pretty as always. A few months later we were standing on the balcony at a hotel watching the sunset on Maui while sipping champagne.
Stayed in Hawaii for ten days. We dated long-distance for a few years with many trips back and forth, and then things kinda fizzled.
That was 16 years ago now. We’ve since moved on and married different people but it was still fun to have teleported onto a different life timeline for a bit.
I do miss her sometimes, and will always adore her. We email occasionally and she knows she can always call me up if she needs a kidney or something.
No regrets.”
Stuck In High School
“When I was a sophomore in high school, there was this senior guy who was just IT. We’ll call him JD. Absolutely gorgeous, funny, football star, baseball star, musician, dude was a dream. He dated the beautiful people and had no clue who I was. I was very stringy and awkward at 15 and I mostly kept my head down.
7 years later, I bumped into JD at a bar. By then I was decently physically attractive. He didn’t recognize me and he did hit on me. I felt like I was on top of the world. As we’re flirting and he’s buying me drinks, I start to realize what a tool the guy is. He clearly peaked at 18 and still lives in that world. At age 26, he was still going to high school parties and talking about his glory days. What a waste.
But he was still dead sexy and I owed it to my 15 year old self to check him off of my list, so we went back to his place and boned. The whole time I was thinking, this is happening. It’s not the best sex I’ve had, but it’s JD! After that he called me a few times but I was over it. You can only do so much for your past self.”
Stuck Up
“Saw her at the 10-year HS reunion.
She was a bit heavier than she’d been in HS, but still attractive. She was there with her Ivy League fiancé. These two facts combined to change my mindset from “I wanna bang my HS crush at our reunion” to “Oh well, never mind.”
At one point, we were being recognized for something, and with all eyes on us, she leaned over and said, “I remember what a crush you had on me. You wanted me baaad.”
First, I couldn’t really react, given the immediate circumstances. Second, I didn’t detect any kind of invitation in what she’d said. In fact, it almost seemed like she was just lording it over me. I mean, she was there with her fiancé, who, we’d determined in previous small-talk, she loooved and who was awesome!
For some reason, it really pissed me off. I just gave her a blank look, shrugged, and walked away. To this day, I wish I’d had some kind of witty comeback, but that’s about my only regret. Haven’t seen her since, but I hope she’s happy, and blah, blah, blah.”
Love At (Second) First Sight
“I had ugly duckling syndrome in high school, hit about 16 and boom, I suddenly became attractive to women. But I still had no idea how to interact with women at all! At 22 I started to get minor modeling fill in gigs, fast forward to 2010 and I found this girl on Facebook I had been in love with since 6th grade. She just went through a divorce so I spilled my guts, we were always friends but she didn’t know my feelings. I flew home to Sacramento from Dallas just to see her. At least see my friend. Turned out, it was like instantaneous love!”
Awkward
We went out for drinks, I was still fixated on her. Was given a chance, but got wasted and embarrassed myself by spending so much of the night talking about how much my younger self liked her; extolling her virtues like it was years ago. I mentioned how crazy and awesome it was that I was finally getting my chance.
It was sad as sh*t. I didn’t realize how badly I messed up until I sobered up. I woke up and immediately knew I would not be given a second opportunity. Saw her reactions and responses from the previous night with a sober eye.
Suddenly realized the massive amount of “I’m going to be polite, but I’ve made a mistake” that was continuously written across her face.
Embarrassing.
Catch You Later
“We started a small thing when we were around 17 years old . Didn’t work out cause she was spoiled and I was pretty heartless a-hole. Fast forward a few relationships for us both 11 years of growth and she came back into my life a few months ago. We’re dating and life is pretty good now, couldn’t ask for anything more. Sometimes it’s the right person but the wrong time.”
The Duckling Is Now The Swan
“My grade school crush was horrible to me. He knew I crushed hard-and would ask me out only to tell me later he was joking. I was heartbroken. 10 year old me cried so hard over it. Years later, when I was about 20 of so and ran into a friend of mine and she introduced me to her friend who turned out to be the guy who broke my heart. I lightly teased him about the heartache he caused on me. He was mortified. Cherry on top? I knew I looked amazing- I had once been a little nerd with glasses who tried too hard to make friends. That feeling was soooooo gratifying.”
Back Where We Started
“Had a bit of a crush on a girl in high school though she didn’t know about it and I had plenty of crushes being a high schooler. She went away to a different college than I did and we stayed in touch throughout. Looking back we were probably a little flirty in our chats during that period of time even but that’s retrospect. 8 years later I ended up back in my college town where she just happened to be doing graduate school and the two of us started going to a small weekly event where you could get tiny cups of wine and some cheese for free and from that we started seeing each other. She’s now my wife, on the other end of the couch right now. We’re expecting a child in September.”
Older And Wiser
“First met him when I was 8 and he was 10, our moms were friends and we had a little crush on each other but he went to boarding school overseas. Meet him again when 12 and he was 14 when we are at the same new years Eve party with parents and almost kiss (Still dorky shy kids). Then send emails and messaging each other while we live in different countries over the years. Meet him again when I was 22 and we start dating. He is now very wealthy and I am getting my graduate degree. We date for a few months when I realize that we are not right for each other. He doesn’t like it when I voice an opinion or his male friends get along with me. We break up, he gets married 6 months later and I meet my boyfriend, so we are both happy in the end. At least we both got closure that the person we idealized as kids/teens was not really the one.”