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.

1999, at the first Homelands festival in Winchester, SE of London.

She was Scottish and was there with a girlfriend. We were 4 guys from a different country, out for the night from our share-house.

We talked and I was nervous about how graceful, intelligent and demure I found her. Hung out and talked, went home our separate ways.

The next day I was at the Papillon bar-cafe with a friend and she came up out of the blue. She was distributing flyers for a gig, and placing some at the cafe. We talked and I was stunned and not confident again. Looking back, there was something there between us, but I did not initiate anything. We said goodbye with no numbers exchanged.

Out of all of London, we bumped into eachother and I didn’t read the destiny flags that were hanging around us.

I am happy now in life, but I will never forget her, how she captured my interest and made me feel that weekend. I have no idea where she is now. I hope happy and fulfilled with whichever direction life has taken her over the past 25 years.

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”.

I wish I could’ve been better for her. But, I couldn’t and I guess if she’s happier now I’m happy for her too.

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.

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…

That phrase never really chimed with me. I don’t think real life works like that.

They’re running a multi million dollar company. It’s hard not to think how different and easy life would have been…

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 dunno, she never had social media at the time and apparently still doesn’t.

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.

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

Who knows. I let her get away despite us being pretty close friends. I think about her, I regret ditching her, but then I remember that not ditching her would mean I’d have to explain why I changed my name and I’d rather suck off a polar bear. Cis name changes are worse than genocide.