There is always that "one." There is always going to be that person.
That person who you will always remember. And when they are the one who you regret losing most... they are the ghost that will haunt you forever.
I have a few escapees. I'll never know how it would've turned out. But that is part of why I'm haunted. I need to discuss....
Redditoru/AssistantNo1733wanted to discuss all the times we've lost in love by asking:
Who's the one who got away?
Do we even have a clue that they're the "one" that got away? How long until it sinks in? And how do we not know there isn't another "one" coming behind them? I have no answers. Just asking...
The Draft
Episode 1 Omg GIF by RuPaul's Drag RaceGiphy"The girl who summoned up the nerve to ask me out towards the beginning of high school. I was so humiliated by the life my family was living that I stalled until she gave up."
"Betsy, if by some stroke of dumb luck you're reading this... I'm so sorry. It was 25-27 years ago, but I still hate myself for that. You were beautiful, intelligent, a good person, and if I had anything resembling a stable, presentable home I would've said yes in a heartbeat... I had a crush on you since 7th-grade 'intro to drafting.'
I Love Her
"Weird, I was just confiding in my mom about this last night. I'm late but for catharsis's sake I'm going to post. My first girlfriend is a classic case of you don't know what you have until it's gone. She's the complete package. Beautiful, intelligent, compassionate, and so kind. We started dating when I was 17 and broke up when I was 21."
"For reference I'm 30 now. I was an idiot. I wanted to play the field. I wanted to party and hook up with college girls. It was fun at first but after a while I felt this gnawing hole in my heart. The feeling of doubt crept up slowly and still, a decade later my chest feels tight thinking about it."
"I didn't realize until my later serious relationships that getting along with your SO's family is so important. Her mom and step dad genuinely treated me like a part of their family. It's not a stretch to say I literally grew up with these people. I spent some of my most formative years with them. Birthdays, Thanksgivings, Christmases, you name it. They celebrated me and my accomplishments. They genuinely cared about me. Just amazing, salt of the earth, lovely people."
"Her birthday was in March and I sent her a text and we ended up talking for a bit. She's happily married and stable with a daughter and a second on the way. I'm genuinely so happy for her. She deserves happiness. I just wish I was a part of that. Sitting at work 10 years later I'm tearing up. I numbed myself out to it for years, it's so strange to me that I've been so stuck on her lately. Is this normal?"
- direct07
15 Years Later
"My very first real love. I was a teenager and I didn't really know how to be comfortable in myself or with myself. I played silly teen girl games and lost him even as a friend. Now 15 years later I still think about R from time to time. I genuinely hope he's happy in his life."
"Edit: Wow this blew up while I was sleeping. Thanks for all the sweet words and to everyone with their "one" congratulations! I suppose I hadn't looked him up on social media because I'm scared, scared he won't respond, scared he will respond, scared he'll think I'm a stalker. I'm in a happy relationship now, but what if... Etc etc etc. But I'll give it a Google."
Missed You Much
rhythm nation dance GIF by Janet JacksonGiphyA girl I dated in high school. Went on a date one time she took me out parking and I was too stupid to realize it.
"She always talked about moving away as soon as she got finished with high school. I always thought I would stay in a little town the rest of my life. Turns out I was the one who left and move to another state. Later I heard that she had told someone that I knew that she thought that we would be married at some point. Missed it by that much."
Ok... I've been a bit blind to the light. People can be cruel, but also highly creative. Why not just lead with the truth? It'll always hurt more after lies.
Chuck E.
Chuck E Cheese Wink GIFGiphy"Ah the rare AskReddit question I can answer."
"I met a wonderful woman circa 2013-2015. We worked at what I can best describe as an upscaled Chuck E Cheese. Or ghetto Six Flags. Your choice."
"We hit it off instantly, though at the time I was rather romantically inept. Eventually, she says she's leaving to join the Air Force. I tell her I'll miss her, and wished her well. The thought of asking for her number so we could stay in contact didn't even cross my mind."
"Cue the next day, I stop for lunch on my way to work, and as I'm walking to my car I hear my name being called. I turn around, and it's her, running toward me. Universe giving me a second chance, right? Wrong. My dumb butt still didn't ask for her number. She looked a little upset, and I still think about her often. Desiree, I hope you're doing well."
The Getaway...
"He was my first and last love. I was 16 and he was 18 when we met. We bounced around like idiots, on again off again, finally got together mid 20s. We both fell into bad habits - drugs and alcohol, more booze for me, more drugs for him. We had some bad things happen that were pretty detrimental to staying sober. We would split, reconcile, get sober, fall off the wagon, split, etc... repeat as necessary. We realized we were very bad for each other unless we could BOTH just get sober for ourselves, and split."
"Ten years later, I was sober for 7 years (still am, going on 18 years end of this month, actually! Woo, go me!) and he was beginning to come back, sober about a year. He contacted me, we met, talked about trying again. He said that once he had been totally clean for a year, we'd do it. That whole "Don't make any changes for a year" thing. I would visit him, tho, things were good."
"He woke up one morning feeling bad, thought he had the flu. (This was pre-now) I stayed around because he was sick, but neither of us thought he was drastically bad, just the flu, right? He got worse and worse, finally we called an ambulance because he got up from a nap and couldn't breathe. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Aortic dissection."
"He got away, but someday I'll see him again. I never stopped loving him, and him me. We just weren't good for each other."
Ce la vie...
"My most serious Ex."
"Don't think I truly understood love until I met her. Loved her more than I ever thought I could love anything. It eventually ended when she told me that, through no fault of my own, she had fallen out of love with me. That was 2 years ago, still hurts to think/talk about."
"Ce la vie..."
The Avoid...
"I'm in the middle of trying to avoid that right now actually."
"It's not worth the heartache trust me. I fought to stay in a relationship for an entire year. If I would've just let her go the first time she wanted there would've been a lot less pain. We would've left on good terms. I would've lost a lot less sleep. Rip the band-aid off because once the band-aid starts peeling it's inevitable it'll fall off with time."
Kim Tate Eye Roll GIF by Emmerdale"My ex and I broke up over 3 years ago. Mutual breakup through a lack of communication on both ends I feel."
"Thought I was over that hill until this week she messaged just to say hey and ask an innocent question. We text for the best part of the day and it's brought up a lot of old feeling. Feeling pretty bitter sweet right now."
The Breaks...
"I watched him get married to someone, then someone else after that and have about 10 kids. I live alone with my dog and am still single. Thems is indeed the breaks."
The Pusher
"Was with someone who was afraid to commit because of their past relationship. She just wanted sex. I wanted a real relationship. She ended up pushing me away. I stopped contact. Maybe I should have kept contact, but from what I've heard I dodged a bullet. Still think about her everyday. It's funny how such a relatively short relationship can have such a lasting impact."
It was HER!
"The first and only woman I truly ever loved. I was so broken at that time and f'd up royally. I've seen her one time since. Everything flooded back like it was yesterday. All I can hope is that someone else makes me feel the same way someday."
Wrong Choice
Dog Gif GIFGiphy"Ex boyfriend told me 'its me or the dog'. I knew I didn't have the money to be on my own and take care of the dog. Thought maybe I could make it work with him so gave the dog up."
"...should've tried to keep the dog."
Paths
"Me. Other versions of my life. I can point to specific moments where I made a clear binary choice that I know would have sent me down a different path. Conscious choices. I often wonder who I would have been if I had chosen differently."
"For example, in the spirit of this question, a boy who I had been massively obsessed with for a long time called me one evening about 25 years ago. He and I had had a falling out two years previously and I had to get over it. I had developed a new crush on someone else in the subsequent two years. I was getting ready to go out to meet newer obsession and didn't answer the phone on time."
"I heard his voice over the answering machine, and stood there, knowing if I picked up the phone I was going to meet him where ever and whenever he wanted and that would be it for the newer relationship. I did not pick it up. I did not call him back. I am married to second guy, happily. I like my choice. I just know I could have walked down a very different road."
"Anyway, there are a handful of specific moments I can point to like this. Who would I be? The trousers of time."
- 2beagles
Not a Person
"We were looking to buy our first house, found one that looked PERFECT. It was on the market for a price that was a little out of our range and higher than the houses around it. Our agent was a friend and told us to put an offer in anyway, you never know. The guy never responded, and our agent discovered she actually knew the homeowner's agent. The homeowner was a huge rude moron and in all kinds of debt he was hoping to get out of by way overcharging for the house, and it turned out our offer was almost exactly what the house had been appraised for."
"But ehh, nothing we could do. We settled for another house. Out of curiosity, I'd check back in on the dream house every few months, and watched the price drop and drop, bit by bit. Eventually it sold for LESS than what we'd offered. Still kind of salty about it."
The Cheesy
"Myself. Cheesy, but I always find myself wishing I didn't settle down so young. Sometimes I wish I would have waited until I understood what I truly wanted in a relationship before I committed and had children. I've been with the same person since I was sixteen and that person doesn't have the qualities I am now interested in, but I still love them and life is complicated."
Just Gone
See U GIF by swerkGiphy"The only girl I ever really loved. About 9 months ago. One day, we were happy, and everything's perfect. The next day, it all fell apart."
"There was no argument. No disagreement. No warnings. She just left. I'll admit it, she has her reasons, and I don't blame her for any of it. Still hurts like it happened yesterday. I'm not sure I'll ever get over her, but I have come to accept it. I question if I'll ever be able to face her again without that depression creeping its way back into my head."
More or Less
"This is going to sound really depressing, but you have to let someone get close before they can be the one who got away. I have a hard time letting that happen, so I can't really point to any one relationship as the one who got away. As for the relationships I have had, I never really pined for any of them after it ended. Most of them are married and happy now, so I can't help but be happy for them."
"It sucks, but there's no hard feelings. At least not towards them. There's plenty towards myself, but that's more or less how it goes for me in general."
Hey Doc
"Dr Chip: You were in medical school and I just turned 21 -- we had an amazing summer and then for what-ever reason, my stupidity got the best of me and I broke it off."
"I met you decades later by chance. You are a successful Doctor, and have an amazing husband; who all your friends called him my twin in almost every way. *sigh* What might have been."
The Beauty
crazy eyes model GIFGiphy"The girl I dated in senior year. She was the one who asked me out, we dated for a few months, but then I started meeting her friends and they were some of the people I didn't like in high school. I ended things because who you chose to be around says a lot about you. She ditched those friends because they were friends in name only, and moved out to the west coast to become a model."
Love is a mess. Why even bother trying if you can't be true? It's not hard to just spell out the situation. And if you're the one needing to put together the words... look closer. The dialogue shouldn't be difficult.
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Reddit user New-Low5765 asked:
"People who work in the airline industry, what are some of the craziest things you have seen?"
Don't Drink And Tow Aircraft
"Worked as ground crew. 2nd day on the job we were issued a notice to gather."
"So when you check in every morning you’re supposed to always take a breathalyzer test to prove you can like you know, ride around the tarmack, use pushbacks on planes, etc..."
"For whatever reason this dude hadn’t taken it/got past without taking it."
"He was not sober."
"He was tasked with pulling a 370 [aircraft] into a hangar."
"He eyeballed it for whatever reason."
"So here we are watching a video of this absolute loon break the whole wing off while damaging the hangar in the process."
"Because he was drunk, insurance doesn’t kick in."
"We were promptly told that Christmas bonuses might be a bit smaller."
~ ProbablyChe
Occupational Hazard
"Someone had the tip of their finger cut off when closing the door to the plane and didn't say anything until the flight landed at the arrival gate and when the door was opened the chunk of finger fell out."
"The staff then said, 'Oh yeah, that's my finger. you can throw it away'."
"I guess he just bandaged and wrapped his own hand."
"It was about 1/4 of his finger including the nail that was cut off. The cutoff portion wasn't particularly bloody and it was really pale."
~ If_I_remember
"A plane I got on once almost left without half of its aircrew on it."
~ BeerisAwesome01
"'Let’s just go, they can meet us there'."
~ InformativePenguin
"Plot twist. That included the pilots."
~ Windyandbreezy
Excess Baggage
"Coffin with dead body inside being left off the flight due to overload without notice either to us or the family and the family realising it by seeing it while the plane was leaving and screaming to us."
~ elenivog
employee of the month ups GIFGiphyNoped Out
"Saw the pilot walk into the passenger area and say 'I'm not flying this piece of sh*t' and get off the plane."
"All the passengers followed him."
~ Jaded-Session8422
"Hell yeah, I'm following the pilot off the plane if something like this happens!"
~ lukaron
Giphy"I had something similar happen, but never got on the plane."
"It was sitting there seemingly ready but they never started boarding."
"Eventually the pilots walk off the plane and a few of us heard them say ‘This junk isn’t going anywhere’."
"Flight ended up getting cancelled a short time later."
~ potatocross
"I was threatened with [pilots walking out] multiple times a week as an aircraft dispatcher."
"Auxiliary power units (APUs) run the air conditioning (AC) in the aircraft and they were always broken down and not fixed quickly, so when the pilots show up it is hot as hell inside and there's no ground crew to connect the external AC."
"So I would get a call from the Captain telling me he is not going to fly this piece of shit because it is too hot."
"Then they'd go on a tirade about how bad the company sucks because they don't do maintenance."
"I would agree with them completely."
Giphy"Then by the end of the call they'd say they will take it but the company sucks and needs to fix the APU."
"Occasionally the captain would refuse it, but then the ground crew would hook up the AC and they would always get back inside and fly it."
"For sure there were issues that popped up where the AC had an unsolvable issue and it would result in a cancelled flight."
~ Winchery
"I’m Dallas-Fort Worth based. No APU/AC in November? Meh, whatever."
"No APU/AC in August in Texas?"
"I’m not going on that airplane. Ground just can’t keep up."
~ poser765
☣️ Bio-Hazard ☣️
"Flight diverted to my airport because a girl in hotpants got uncontrollable diarrhea from the laxatives she took before the flight to help get over her weekend binge in Vegas."
"She sh*t in her seat and down the aisle and all over the bathroom."
"Five other passengers had uncontrollable vomiting because of this and the panic on the plane from the crew and rest of passengers caused the plane to make an emergency landing."
"They ended up having to cancel the remaining leg of the flight to decontaminate the plane."
"Police were sent and interviewed her and her friends and no charges were filed. I don't know if the airline put her on any kind of no-fly list or tried to have her pay for damages."
~ If_I_remember
GiphyHighly Unsuccessful
"There were two suitcases checked in that were full of nothing but weed."
"The police arrested him in the gating area & confiscated the bags."
~ Traditional_Pair4840
"Something similar happened when I was a ramp rat back in the 1960s."
"Law enforcement was going to do the arrest at his destination."
"The weed disappeared before they got there."
~ endadaroad
Stealthiest Catch
"As a baggage handler I once had a shipment of live Alaskan crabs escape their container on the ramp."
"Flights were delayed."
"Turns out those guys scatter when they panic and try to hide under anything and everything."
~ Gregwaaah
"My significant other worked doing maintenance checks on commercial planes."
"This explains why they once found a bunch of dead crabs under the floorboards in the cargo bay. It was a mysterious mystery."
~ Highly_Referential
Avoiding A Strip Search?
"A fully naked woman just walked through the terminal and tried to walk through security like she wasn’t fully naked."
~ Commercial-Chance561
"She was just very considerately trying to make it easier for TSA."
~ TrooperJohn
"They make you take off your shoes but they don't say that's all you can take off."
~ smartguy05
Language Barrier
"I witnessed this in the security screening of a large American airport."
"And to be fair, there was a language barrier as the passenger in question seemed to be speaking mainly French, and struggling to understand the TSA agent's instructions in English."
"Female passenger (tall, attractive, and sophisticated-looking) was wearing a business suit with a pencil skirt and matching jacket, which was buttoned closed, going through security."
"The TSA agent told her she had to remove the jacket. She ignored and tried to go through anyway."
"He stopped her and told her again more loudly (that's when everyone started noticing)."
"She said no. He insisted. She refused again, and tried to walk through."
Giphy"He got angry."
"She tried to explain something but it was unclear because her English was poor."
"It went back and forth."
"They both started getting angry and frustrated. It started holding up the line and other passengers were getting agitated."
"A few people tried to intervene and explain more calmly that she needed to put her jacket through the x-ray machine."
"Finally, near tears, she blurted out 'fine' and removed her jacket, revealing that she was wearing nothing at all underneath, and walked through the screening machine topless."
~ SigmaSeal66
I'm a nervous flyer so it's not something I do often, but I still feel a little cheated that nothing this bizarre has happened while I was traveling.
Has something ever happened during your travels?
Share it in the comments.
A good friend is not always the one with whom you share laughs and fun experiences.
The friendships you want to keep include those who won't abandon you in a time of need or someone who supports you in a variety of complicated situations where not even a family member can be relied upon.
Unfortunately, many of us have experienced a time when a person's true colors revealed to us that the so-called "friend" we've always trusted wasn't one at all.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor Aesthetik_1 asked:
"What made you instantly realize This 'friend' is not a real friend?"
These Redditors didn't realized at the time that they were being used.
Recurring Favor
"When he only called me when he needed something. It didn't hit me until much later."
– Queasy-Location-9303
"I have one of those 'friends'. She always gushes about how we're friends but she never initiates contact unless she wants me to do something for her."
– StiffAssedBrit
The Errand Girl
"Several years back, I had a friend who introduced me to this new boy she was seeing. Maybe a year later, their relationship blew up in a fury of bs (whole other story), but by the time they split, I was equally friends with both of them. He and I were both photographers at the time, so the friendship was instantaneous."
"One day we started talking about her, neither positively nor in poor taste, just kind of in general."
"He then asked me 'when she texts to hang out, what does she usually want to do?'"
"I paused. I thought. Holy sh*t, she'd either be asking for a favour or for help with some kind of errand. I was her f'king errand girl."
"She texted me a month or two later, just a 'hey'. I never responded. She never texted again."
"I'm still friends with her ex, though. That dude is genuine as heck."
– ChamomileBrownies
Testing The Friendship
"When you decide to let them be the one to reach out. And you never hear from them again."
– plzdontgetmad
"Yup. Made plans with a friend three times, she cancelled each time. I finally told her to let me know when she was free, we haven’t hung out since."
"She was a good friend for the season, but not a lifetime."
– NoMrBond3
People were shocked to discover the moment they realized they didn't really know who their "friend" was anymore.
The Chaperon
"I had been giving rides to a girl I thought was my friend. To and from school in high school. She wasn’t really suppose to ride with other teens but due to her mothers work hours we could easily pull this off. I thought we were close."
"One day while on the way home my brakes went out. We were about 2 blocks from her gated neighborhood. I managed to roll in safely and parked at her house to call a tow truck."
"She flipped. Told me I couldn’t stay. She knew my brakes were not working as she had also been terrified when we couldn’t stop. She said she wanted to go to a movie that weekend with other friends and her mom would ground her if she saw me at the house. I offered to lie and say I only stopped there as my car malfunctioned on my way home. I had to pass her neighborhood on my way home anyways."
"She refused. Started to scream at me. She didn’t care what happened I had to go. Started to call the guard at the front gate to tell them I had broken in and was threatening her."
"I left her and that friendship that moment. I managed to roll my car slowly to a mechanic not too far away but never forgot the shi* feeling of knowing I could have been seriously hurt and she wouldn’t have cared. She wanted to see a movie. She had the nerve to sheepishly call and ask me a couple days later if I could give her a ride to school. Told her I was too busy and no longer had time… after all I wanted to help her obey her mom's rules. She rode the bus til she graduated."
– Duffarum
Unwilling Companion
"I had this friend in school. Each year there was a funfair in our city, all students received vouchers for a drink and something to eat. This friend complained the whole day that she had no one to accompany her to the funfair. So, stupid me offered to go with her."
"Once we arrived we met another friend of hers. And another, and another... until we were a group of 5 or 6 people. I didn't know anyone and was basically just walking behind them. This friend took me aside and said, 'My friends think you are annoying, and we would like you to leave.'"
"It was a pleasure to see that she failed her exams a year later."
– Auldale
There's the spirit of competition, but when it's taken seriously, we're no longer game for these friendships.
I Can Do It Better
"Constantly 'one ups' me. A real friend is happy for you."
– Complex-Half8338
"That one time I got a fake bag but she doesn’t know and then 2 weeks later messaged me that she also bought a luxury bag… Then when I got a bf, she also went to get a bf within 3 months which is TOTALLY fine but she constantly messages me for us to go on a double date. Anyways, sadly they didn’t last long :( I mentioned that I wanted to go to Cuba, she went ahead and bought herself a ticket to Cuba but I didn’t end up going lol"
– Hot-Coffee-8465
Never Steal The Spotlight
"When they loved the idea of me shining, but behind their shadow, I could never do or achieve anything above them, and when I did, they would get jealous."
– Jasssin23
"Yes! I recently ghosted a friend because of this kind of behavior. She was trying to compete about EVERYTHING. Like she bragged about how her mom’s car accident was more traumatic than my elderly MIL’s - which is not even an appropriate thing to compare. She would also try to 'outshine' celebrations of my milestones and was mean to several of my friends for no apparent reason. She was a loose cannon at best."
– thefifthtrilogy
All About Me
"ALL she talks about it herself and her problems. Granted she has a a lot but never asks about me or my life until she realizes she just bypassed my attempt to want to talk about something in my life bothering me and continued to talk about herself."
– PokemomOnTheGo
People can just be so rude.
"When I got really sick. Very few came to help."
– Tofflus1
"Same here. I got cancer and everyone I knew was over the top supportive for the first six months and then all but three of my friends just vanished. I saw one of them at a Halloween party while I was going through chemo and she told me that my bald head made people uncomfortable. I was dressed as Captain Picard, it was awesome and she ruined it."
– CatGoNoTail
Not Missing High School
"At lunch, she was sitting with her boyfriend, I was sitting with our friend circle. She came up to me, guilted me into sitting with her and her boyfriend, and then proceeded to ignore me for the rest of lunch."
"She didn't care about me, she just didn't want me talking to the friend circle that she had abandoned for her boyfriend. When I pointed this out to her, she called me a jealous b*tch."
"Ah, high school. How I don't miss thee."
– Symnestra
These examples actually served as a good reminder for me to take a moment and assess my friendships.
Not so much about how I've been treated but more about checking myself to see if I'm respecting the people I call my friends.
We've all been guilty of casually mentioning future plans to get together. I embarrassingly wait for people to initiate something, which is terrible.
Show up for your friends. Make them feel important like the individuals they are.