An open to letter to the guy I dated during high school

Dear old boyfriend,

I used to call you by your full name, but it wasn't endearing in the way that it should have been. I just liked the ring to it. Plus, people who are in the "double first name club" deserve recognition. Like Shannon Elizabeth. Or Chris Martin.

That should've been a sign that I never really felt comfortable with you. But let's be real. Who really knows themselves in high school?

When you first get to college, there's a mutual sharing of all of your past indiscretions and boyfriends and those things you didn't tell your parents because there are some things that you just don't tell your parents. I remember talking about you with my roommates. It might have been the only time I had really thought about our relationship. Because when I thought about it, none of it made sense.

You had been asking me out since the fall, and I had always said no. I wish you had been less persistent because then maybe I would've been a little bit nicer. If we're being honest, I could have been a whole lot nicer.

You swam in the lane next to mine in the morning, and in the afternoon, you ran next to my brother on the track. It was nice how you were always asking me about him.

My friend Ellie used to joke how you were the only guy who looked good in those track uniforms. That was true. But that was also before I decided that yeah, I'm pretty into guys with muscles. Back then, you were just the guy with curly black hair.

I think we first bonded about music. I know that I first respected you when we talked about the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and you said that you would drive up to Atlanta to see them live. I though that was cool because road trips and music were things that I wanted in my life.

Don't you think it's weird that I always turned you down until you mentioned to me that you had bought tickets to see the Chili Peppers live? Two tickets. You told me that and not long after we were going on our first date. It was mini-golf. I tried to be cooler than I was.

You came to my family's Superbowl party, and we held hands, and then you drove home that night. It took two hours to drive between our houses. You called me on your way back and asked what we were. You became my boyfriend that night (my friends called that a DTR or "define the relationship").

And then we went to that concert together. There were other people from our school there, but I don't think anyone was excited as I was. I still say that the hour encore/jam session was life changing.

There were a lot of things that we did together that spring. We went to the beach. We went boating. We went to prom. You gave me daisies that made all of your freshmen admirers say to my friends, "Wow, he must really like her."

That's what my mom told me too after you sat and talked with her for an hour at a school function. She was right.

We had a mutual break-up, but it wasn't really mutual. It was me cancelling all of our dates and then pretending I didn't have to answer your calls because you lived two hours away, and it was already the summer. And, anyway, I was seventeen and didn't really think that people might have important emotions to consider.

You were a pretty cool guy for everything that I put you through, and it's a shame that I never got to tell you that because you left our school over the summer. I haven't seen you since. At least not in real life. Facebook allowed me to stalk those pictures of that blonde girl you dated for a month. Your homecoming pictures. That summer job you held after graduation. When you had a baby.

And then I realized that I don't know you anymore. Maybe I never did. I hope I did. But maybe I will again.