I like to look up people from the past, both ancient long dead relatives for my genealogical collections as well as guys and gals that have been part of my own life. I keep track of my college roommates, not often, but at least once a year. And I have traveled sometimes fair distances to meet up with these friends from the past. One time during my life I got in to big trouble with my husband because I looked up an old boyfriend. Facebook was not available then but we began emailing. He had been pretty interested in me, but the feeling wasn't mutual back in college, and I am afraid that I dumped him rather brutally. But this time in our emailing, I found some interest on my part. We met a couple of times and I enjoyed those outings. My husband knew about our meetings, but then he found some of the emails that this guy had written to me and I got into trouble. Needless to say this fellow and I mutually ended our communications. I read a book once about such renewed past relationships. There is something in the brain circuitry that makes these connections very very dangerous. Both individuals apparently see themselves as their much younger selves. They readily step back into their roles and feelings that existed between them when they were vibrant, active, young people. If these pairs are available, unmarried, and capable, a new relationship can develop, sometimes even more powerful in nature than the original one. Such renewed relationships are the subject of novel and movie. And of course they are the subject of emotional and sad stories when they have a tendency to break up established marriages. I didn't fully comprehend this at the time. I read the book afterward. My husband once told me that he had telephoned a gal that he had known in college. He knew she was married, but he was in her hometown and just wished to talk to her. She had not been his romantic interest, but they had just been friends. She answered the phone but when she found out who was calling, she refused to talk to him, said Good Bye kindly and hung up. She was much wiser than myself and many other people. I have not contacted any other members of the opposite sex that I knew in the past since this experience.
However, I have contacted several previous girl friends from college and I have looked for many others. I had a roommate for one semester in college, then she left the school. I found her and she and her husband have visited me twice two years in a row at my home as they were traveling in the area, and likewise, I and my husband have visited her when we were traveling in her area of the country. We have thoroughly enjoyed those visits and will possibly do it in the future. I have made contact with a couple other college female friends and found them. We have become Facebook friends. By the way it is much more difficult to find former female friends. Marriage changes names and they tend to drop out of sight.
About 8 months ago I was successful in finding a college friend whom I had been looking for for some years. I don't know why she didn't appear in search sites before. But all of a sudden, a search site opened up and there was her name, address, and phone number. She had been a medical professional, had retired, but the licensure board still retained her information and this time the search site (a free one, interestingly) found the listing.
She was taking a friend to a medical appointment in my previous college town nearby. We arranged to meet for lunch in that town. I was familiar with some places to meet and some places to spend time together. I enjoyed meeting this gal so much. We talked and by chance seemed to have similar political viewpoints. She told me all about her interests in retirement, her hobbies, several of them quite creative, her travels, and future plans. I was taken by her same sort of edgy sense of humor, though she has mellowed considerably. Her memory of our friendship and all the times we spent together was somewhat lost but to me she seemed much the same. I also loved to hear the same laughing out loud that she could do in response to our joking and just looking at life with a humorous not too serious viewpoint. This experience again showed me just how important these old connections are to me. So far, I have found that the people I find and establish a connection with, continue to be interested in maintaining the connection. That's why the opening cartoon seems so indelibly true.
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