An apology.
I'm not sure what spawned it. But yesterday, God help me, I found myself wondering where my first girlfriend ended up. I wonder how many people go through this. I did a half hearted google search with no luck. Ah well. The quick exercise made me think of past lovers in general. I thought about how our relationship ended. Then I thought of a couple of other relationships that ended poorly (or at least in my mind) too. I have had plenty of relationships that ended badly that I never give a second thought. But these in particular stay in my mind because I feel I was particularly... hurtful or deceitful. 2 in particular. There is a third, but we have remained friends so I'm not nearly so bothered about that one. Though to clear my conscious I should probably fess up to the true nature of things with her. But I'll broach that later... if at all.
Be forewarned, this will probably bore most people.
The first is my high school sweetheart. I'll call her D. She and I dated for 2 years pretty steadily in high school. We were both virgins. She was a year behind me. Obviously, when it was time for me to go to college, she still had a year to go. I went away. Somewhere in the middle of my year, I met another girl. She and I fooled around a good bit. We never had sex. But in context of D and I, it was definitely cheating. D and I had that whole starry eyed hormonally driven love.
Summer came along. The girl went to her hometown, I went to mine. D and I picked up where we left off. Then she told me she was coming to my college. I wasn't really worried. The other girl and I weren't that serious. I was pretty sure she would date someone else when she got back. D and I picked our starry eyed romance back up. We were both still virgins. Which probably led to the way events unfolded later.
Fall rolled around. D and I came back to school. I had met a lot of friends the year before. I also hung out with a girl I kind of dated in junior high (as much as you could call it dating), I'll call her F. She was a year older and big into the social scene, sororities, parties so on and so on. When D and I first started dating, she was cute as hell. Then she started putting on some weight. By the time she made it to college, she was on the heavy side. Not huge. But she had an extra 40 or so pounds. It bothered me a little. But she was my girlfriend and that's just the way she was. F, however, really started in on me about her appearance. She told me I could do better and on and on. The little bit it bothered me turned into a lot.
Meanwhile, D and I finally slept together... had sex. It was both of our first times. I think I wrote about it somewhere in my archives. The first time led to many. She was the first girl I ever went down on. In fact, I would say she started my love of it.
The final straw came when the girl I saw the year before, sort of expressed an interest. Between that and the ever growing concern over D's appearance, I started thinking about breaking it off. Finally, a couple of months after we slept together, I told her I thought we should break up. I think she was pretty devastated by it. We had been dating around 3 years at that point. I don't know if she ever saw it coming. I'm 95% positive she didn't date throughout college. She moved in with a family as an at home nanny after college in a podunk little town. I know she got married at some point. I would like to hope she was just biding her time until the right guy came along. In my gut, I know a fair portion of it was because of me.
Things didn't even get off the ground with the other girl. I realized what a huge mistake I made at that point. But I really didn't want to jerk D around. I also was still pretty bothered by her weight. F was also in my ear the whole time telling me "You did the right thing. We are going to hook you up with some outstanding girls" (never did). I believed it for a long time. I thought I would find someone better.
In hindsight, I firmly believe I did the right thing. I was way too young to make a commitment to someone for life. I needed to get out and get crazy. Do all the shit young people are supposed to do. But I really did love her (as I knew love at the time). My biggest regret with her is the pain I know it caused her over what, at the time, was purely selfish reasonings.
The second is also girl with whom I went to high school, I'll call her LP. She was a couple of years younger than me. Eventually, she attended the same college as I did. When we met again, I was sort of in limbo girlfriend wise. I had been seeing the girl who would become the ex-Mrs. The ex-Mrs had a real problem with school. She flunked out several times. Or rather, she flunked out once and while she wasn't flunking in other attempts, she never could bring her overall GPA up enough to stay in (once you flunked you have to bring it up to a certain point). I honestly can't remember which time this was. Maybe the first. Maybe the 2nd. I dunno. Anyway, she moved back to her home town and got a job. LP and I started hanging out. One thing lead to another and she ended back up at my place a couple of times. While we did sleep together, we didn't have sex.
Now, on a scale of 1 to 10 for enthusiasm for what we DID do, I'd have to say LP was an 11. Aside from my regrets about the way things ended, I really regret never finding out what it was like to have sex with her. LP was the only girl to ever give me a hickey (and an experience I found to be rather unpleasant actually). The first time my hand made it to her tits, she went completely apeshit. That was as far as I got. I think she might've actually snapped my neck had I been able to go down on her... Maybe crack a few ribs. Sadly I'll never know.
Anyway, our relationship was pretty relaxed. The few times we went out, was more like a date than anything else. We chatted a little in between. But it wasn't like we HAD to talk to each other daily.
Then, to my chagrin, the waiting period for the ex-Mrs to come back to school came to an end. I honestly can say I didn't expect her to come back. But she did. During her break from school, she came to visit a few times. I'm pretty sure we had sex when she did. In fact, ex-Mrs claimed she was a virgin (a claim I have questioned for a long time). I'm pretty sure we had crossed that bridge quite some time before this break. In the context of this story, that fact came into play when I found out she was coming back. I was faced with a dilema, or a choice really. Ex-Mrs, or LP. For some odd reason, I felt that I had been "going with" ex-Mrs before, and therefore should stick with her. Never mind the fact that I found LP really attractive and the ex-Mrs, well... I never could really put a finger on why I stuck with her. Maybe it was because she was persistent. LP was a real sweetheart. She had a great disposition, cute as hell, clearly had great potential in bed. Most importantly, she really seemed to have an honest heart. So when it became clear I had to make a choice, I decided to make a choice rather than hedging them both and trying to have 2 girls (I'm definitely no saint, I have been down that road and am not proud of it. But occasionally I try to do the right thing). Which is where we come to how things ended.
There were a few weeks of break in school. I had an apartment and a job. LP lived in the dorms. She went home. I stayed. Then they ALL came back. I went a week or two after they got back without having any contact with LP. Finally, she called and wanted to see me. I had her come to meet me in my office. This is the part I really regret. I broke it off with her clean. And I never exactly lied to her. But I chose my words very carefully to imply I had seen someone else before she and I started going out (true). I don't remember my exact words now, but they IMPLIED I knocked the previous girl up and needed to take care of business with her. I never lied to her. But I'm a realist. I may as well have. I don't know how she felt about me. But she was a real sweatheart and deserved much better than that. Most of my regrets with LP are purely selfish. But the way things ended with her has been one of the moments in my life I'm least proud of.
To make a truly sincere apology, I should probably hunt them down and write them a letter. But seriously, who does that? I mean, A) it has stalker written all over it. B) LP at least would probably say "Mr who?". C) in spite of the fact I can't help myself, it's really pretty sad that I'm even dwelling on these things. Oh how my life has sunk at the moment. So this is the best I'm gonna muster. A half assed, anonymous apology to people who have most likely moved on after the first sentence anyway. But here goes:
D, LP, I offer my sincerest apology for the way I treated you. You both were of very kind hearts and deserved much better.