There’s more than one. I saw one of them lately, she’s doing good. We talked and hugged. That felt good, a little closure.

Mostly I don’t know since I am so bad with people and they stay the fuck away from me which, good for them.

There’s some I really grieve for. The things I couldn’t do. The things I was too bad at.

I hope all of them are better than I am.

My high school boyfriend who I fell in love with when I was 12. The trouble was he was 16, and then I was 14 and he was 18, and at the time I didn’t understand what the problem was. We had a brief moment together when I was 14 and he 17, and nobody but the two of us has ever been so in love. Never felt anything like that in my life again, it was like a . But then I was too young and he got kicked out of his parents house and moved away. I caught up with him on Facebook by accident, and he was this lovely smart pleasant progressive person who loved Obama and Trudeau. I quit Facebook for a while and when I went back he was a Trump Qanon psycho despite being Canadian, albeit born in the US. It’s like seeing someone catch leprosy or something. Like they had a brain infection and came out with a totally different personality. I am way more left than Obama and Trudeau, but he at least reasonably believed in progressive politics. Suddenly he was an antimasker making shitty comments about trans people. Obviously I ended up dodging a bullet because that’s a no go for me, but I never felt such pure love in my life as I did for him and it hurt terribly to see him become this lunatic even if we weren’t together.

They all got away. I don’t know how any of them turned out; because I disappeared and became lost.

I’ve been a serial monogamist since I started dating (way back in middle school), and my major relationships have been 1.5 years, 5.5 years, 2 years, and my current relationship which is 8+. My “ones that got away” were actually people that I wish I had messed around with in a no-strings-attached sort of way when I happened to be single. Problem is that I was never single for very long. Should’ve seen that as a personal red flag at the time, but I lacked the maturity and clarity.

Anyways, it’s not like an active desire I have. I’m really lucky - I’m married to a great guy, and I truly believe I’ve chosen an excellent life partner. Certainly the best fit for me from all the guys I’ve met. Just sometimes I wish I hadn’t taken love and sex so seriously when I was younger, and tried to have more fun.

If any young person is reading this, get it out of your system! Anybody that’s gonna judge you isn’t worth your time. Just be smart and safe about it, but you’ve got your whole adult life to be serious.

I saw her crossing the street (not at a crosswalk). Beautiful, confident, zero fucks given, I was immediately in love. I debated pulling over and seeing if I could go back and find her, but it happened too fast and there was no good road to turn onto. Oh well, even though she didn’t have a collar, she probably already had a home…

Last I know, she’s living a successful life doing what she wanted to do. Good for her.

The one that got away is currently posting this comment.

She was a he when I wanted him. Came out as transgender a few years after.

Cool gal, tho.

I got her back about a year or two later. She’s currently about 1m to my right, and now that 15 years have passed we share a house with four kids and two cats.

I’m in my 50’s. I have had 3 that got away (2+ years living together). I get along with them famously. They are doing good-great, probably because we never got to life-partner stage. I’m not perfect by any means, so our non-matching characteristics, and my inability, then, to understand mutual acceptance then would have probably soured things long-term. Great memories and lived experiences. Nobody can take that from us.

My ex wife and mother of kids and I had 8 great years. 4 OK, and 4 crap years. We can barely communicate now.

Not sure where she is. She was smarter than me and never really got into the social media thing when it was starting and so nearly twenty years later, I’ve not been able to find a trace of her in terms of social media presence.

She was very much a hippie. But not in a run around barefoot with flowers in her hair doing LSD hippie. Just more in a sense of really down to earth and loved doing things like making soap, or being out in nature. Just really not materialistic at all. Which I appreciated at the time, but something happened, she misunderstood my reaction to it and left me with the belief that she was crazy. And maybe she was, but I should have handled it better and explained things to her in a way that could have kept us together. But that’s life I guess.

Not at "one that got away story really " but… Middle school or early high school (I don’t understand well your USA system), one girl asked me to be her bf (maybe as a joke idk), i did 180 and said bye, just wasn’t into those things yet, only cared about watching Digimon and stuff. Typical nerd with thick glasses.

I always considered her physically unattractive but she was a sweet heart with everyone, soft spoken, her mom was a religion teacher at our school.

Anyways, next year, hormones were doing its job I guess, she looked the same ugly duckling for me, but she also… I dunno, like something was calling me towards her and I though many years later, even to this day “man, I should’ve said yes, even if it was a prank or a short thing”.

She became the girlfriend of the only “jock” (for you Americans) of the class about 3 months after my “rejection”.

I know it sounds kind of corny, but when I met her I physically fell for her. She was sitting on a desk and I tripped over an extension cord in front of her. We knew of each other but we never really talked until that day. She laughed and asked for my number and from then on we hung out everyday. Eventually, I realized that I was happy just being with her. I’d dream about her, I’d think about her, I’d want to see her. But, I kept it all quiet until we both graduated. We hung out afterwards when we both moved to the same city for different university’s and I couldn’t be happier. But, we still weren’t together. Then, I moved to another city, she stayed, I eventually confessed but she was going through an identity crisis and wasnt sure if she was into me anymore. Then 6 years passed with no closure. We reconnected through a mutual friend and laid everything out. I told her I fell in love with her. She told me she felt bad for how things ended. And, we decided to just be acquiantences and leave everything behind. I’m trying to forget her completely but even to this day I think about her. We talk briefly once a year or something for work mainly but I still love her. She’s still in the same city we both moved to for Uni but other than that, I don’t know too much about her anymore.

there was this one girl I knew that we both kinda bonded over being outcasts, among other things. I didn’t do anything cause I had untreated clinical anxiety and adhd, but that’s unrelated. Anyway she stopped going to my school and there was also a girl in my neighborhood who got kidnapped, and I don’t think those events involved the same girl, but rumor around the school was that it was, while I thought it was someone else. At this point, I don’t even know if there’s a way to answer that question

There was one friend who got away. She was single when we met through a common friend group,but she got together with one of my best friends. And while we were close, neither of us overstepped any boundaries. When she later ended that relationship she moved away for Uni. We hooked up a few times after that, but it was always more of a “drunken/desperate” hookup the day after - or that was what we, especially her, tried to tell ourselves,not wanting to risk our friendship.

I moved abroad, married (she was there), got a kid, couldn’t be happier. She is successful,but I don’t know more about her - she basically cut all contact after we met (for a normal coffee) and I had my kid with me…

Tbh, I still miss her a lot, especially as a friend, but sometimes I also wonder “what if”.