Tales of Valentines Past - day 1

Once upon a time, on a valentines day long ago.....

ok wait i have to preface this story a little bit. so I'll start at the beginning.

Back in the day, when I was a cute-ish girl of 14, I went to my first Saturday night dance with my friends to show me the ropes, and introduce me to people. There was a particular group of guys we were friendly with.

Some of them asked me to dance and sometimes since I wasn't one to stand around waiting for someone to ask me to dance, I asked guys to dance, the first night i asked this tall blond guy from that group to dance.

His name was Thad. nice guy, cute-ish, quiet etc. He was good friends with the guy i had a crush on. Thad was always there, so if he was there and the guy I had claimed as my guy wasn't then I'd ask Thad. he was pretty constant, always there, always ready to dance either asking me or I'd ask him. he was a year older than me.

so, at some point he developed a crush on me, over the years we'd go out here and there and talk on the phone. he was nice, and I was flirty, and well, he thought I felt the same about him. and on some level I might have, but at the same time, he was too timid and nice for me.

he even took me to Homecoming

and Prom his senior year.

Thad was definitely more attached to me than I was to him, and when he confessed that he love, LOVED me when i turned 16, well, it scared the crud outta me and i shut him out for a few months.

eventually we got back to a normal friendly vibe and he didn't push it, and i liked his company. but essentially all through highschool i kinda led him on and yet I didn't. I never said it was more than it was, i just didn't avoid him either if he wanted to think himself infatuated ,well, who wouldn't like that? I admit I went through periods of being really nice and not very nice like all teenage girls do.

The thing is, we only ever held hands, we never ever kissed and he shook like a leaf when i hugged him at my graduation. (he made it point to come)

the old original crush drifted in and out the picture eventually he got married at 18, Thad and I were still friends and we even sat together at the wedding.

when Thad left on his mission for our church, I said I'd write him. (along with probably 4 other guys and even another guy at bootcamp) while i dated around and worked the singles scene.

Even while I kept things casual with him, I knew, if i was around when he got home we would probably get married. Turns out that he thought the same thing, (which i found out when we reconnected on FB last year).

Which brings me to the point of this story. About a year into his mission, we'd been writing back and forth, him faithfully , and me randomly, Thad getting more and more serious, and me writing the military guy, 4 other missionaries, and dating Lance pretty heavily, until i finally got engaged.

at that point I was for sure getting married and i had to deal with the reality of writing a *Dear John letter, to this sweet guy that kind of worshiped me and truly thought he loved me.

So sometime in January, I sucked it up and wrote the letter telling him i was getting married. (mail to Brazil took a few weeks )

You are wondering why does this have anything with valentines day ?

well because, the Dear John letter arrived on Valentines day 1997 but the letter was adorned with hearts and apparently broke his heart.

OOPS, my bad.

huh, yeah it's a gem of a story right?

the letter back from him was not awesome, he was so mad and i was hurt at the time thinking it was so mean to reply like that.

looking at it now it wasn't so bad, and i guess when he revisited my letter back last year it wasn't as bad as he'd remembered either.

but you can see why his wife was threatened by my friendship with her hubs and suddenly unfriended me on FB last year.

yeah this is that guy, my stalker.

and while i have no feelings other than friendship and really never did have more that friendly feelings, I can see why his wife wouldn't be comfortable . and yet on the other hand, he was a constant friend all through high school. we had history, and not the romantic kind but it's fine, we got a little closure, and I made amends and apologized for the crappy way i treated him. we got to catch up and see where we both are now , He's one that I've always wondered about where he was and what he was up to. now i know.

so this was day one.

you loved it right?

Did you ever have to write a Dear John letter?

did you ever get one?

did you know what a Dear John was? (definition at the bottom)

*Dear John

  –noun Informal.

1.	a letter from a woman informing her boyfriend or fiancé that she is ending their relationship or informing her husband that she wants a divorce: Nothing is worse for a soldier's morale than getting a Dear John.

2.	any letter terminating a relationship.

© 2010 crazymamaof6