[30 March 2005] The one that got away always looks better than the one you have
Always.
Rhonda and I are in Dunedin visiting my mother and step-father. It's been a good trip so far, we've been doing nothing but laze around reading and chatting, and done the odd bit of strolling along the beach when the weather's OK - it's as cold down here as I remembered.
So yesterday we're walking through the student quarter and someone calls my name. It takes me a second before I recognise her because the hair's a completely different style and colour. She's a fomer workmate of mine who I had a long-standing crush on, years ago. I never did anything about it because she was about to leave the country (not wanting to start a relationship with someone who was about to be on the other side of the world, and who I wouldn't see for many months - those of you who know what happened about six months after this may see it as slightly ironic).
So, of course, we hooked up at her farewell party. I think she might have been interested in me as well, but not done anything because she was leaving. So she took 16 months coming back, and when she did she came back to Dunedin, not Wellington, and I only ran into her a couple of times by chance. So nothing happened between us.
And still, I've got a thing for her. Ridiculous, because (a) she's a long way away; (b) I haven't seen her in months; (c) I have a girlfriend. And yet, I can't help wondering what might have been, hoping that I'll see her again (I'm in a cybercafe next to the cafe where I saw her yesterday).
The reasons are pretty obvious: it's much easier to idealise someone who isn't there than to deal with the flaws of the person who is with you, to have to negotiate what you're doing tonight, whose friends you'll spend time with, everything. Better the one that you hardly ever see.
Ah, we all make fools of ourselves, don't we? Go watch 'Closer' (the film or the play) and see how people ruin perfectly good things all for desire of what they don't have.
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