Has anyone ever hunted you down after years of being out of touch? Did they utilize the internet to dig you up? How many years had it been and how did you feel about being "found"?

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001

Answers

In the past 3 days, 3 people from different times of my distant and not-so-distant past have tracked me down and contacted me.

One was a dear friend I met while living overseas, one was a girl I went to my senior high school with, and one was a boyfriend from my early teens. He was the one who blew my mind.

So I'm bombarded with memories of these people and those times. I'm not sure how I feel about all of this: nervous, excited, a little irritated, too.

Tell me how you felt when your past came knocking (or ringing).

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001

It's never happened to me- once someone's out of my life, they don't come back- but I've always wondered what would happen if they did. What would I do, especially if we ended on bad terms? I have no idea.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001

The boy I dated in high school that I thought I was supposed to marry turned up last year. We dated through the fall of my freshman year of college, then I dumped him because I needed to be free. He got married a year later.

...eight years pass...

He e-mails me one day last fall, having found me on highschoolalumni.com, and says hi. I write back and ask about his wife and 2.4 children. He replies and says, "no kids, divorced the wife, wanna go to dinner?"

While at dinner he tells me that he had always tried to find me, but with no luck (I am always unlisted, so no surprise there). He asks me if I still live on South First Street.

Yall, South First Street was where my brother lived four years ago when I let him set up a telephone account with SWBT in my name. Freaky.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001

Today, the younger brother of a friend of mine - I haven't seen or spoken to either in YEARS - called me to announce that

1) he had heard about my dad and was very sad about it and,

2) he's going into the Army next week and wanted to speak to me before he left.

It was nice to hear from him, but you know, it was weird.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001

Well, anyone who reads my journal knows that a boy I was involved with, and had falled hard for and gotten hurt terribly by, two years ago, emailed me about a month ago.

I was completely freaked out by it, but we emailed a bit back and forth and then I finally got the nerve to ask him Why now?. He hasn't written back yet.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001

Nobody has ever contacted me through email. I'm like Jennifer -- once somebody's out of my life, they generally don't want back in. Does that say something about me?

Not to do one of those weird "I don't have a journal so I'll write my entire life story in a forum post" things, but I DID recently see my very first true love 4-eva I'D DIE FOR YOU! high school boyfriend. It ended badly; he cheated on me and we broke up. He started dating a girl I'd grown up with who was my SWORN MORTAL ENEMY! and got her pregnant. They got married (she wearing a black dress!), she quit school, had their baby, he went into the Marines, etc. Obviously, I went on with my life, acted to everyone like I didn't give a shit, and even made jokes about it, but those were some difficult times for me. Eventually I graduated from school, went to college, and saw neither hide nor hair of either of them for years. I completely forgot about them.

Fast forward: I was working in a hair salon when my SWORN MORTAL ENEMY! walked in to buy some conditioner. HELLO!!! She was not a confrontational type of person, and I was long over it. She talked to me like we were still old friends. And she came bearing news, baby: she and Ex were legally separated, she was pregnant again but wasn't sure if the baby was his (!!!), and she was willingly giving up custody of their first child so, and I quote, "we can each have one to raise." Yeah. Later she called me out of nowhere to tell me she'd had the baby and it WASN'T his and they were divorced (and she was living in public housing, unemployed, and on welfare.) Um, okay, thanks for calling?

Fast forward: I am at the gas station near my parents' house, which is near Ex's parents' house (where he still lives, by the way! He is 30!) I go inside to pay for my gas, and there is Ex. Easily ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY POUNDS HEAVIER than he was the last time I'd seen him!!! Talk about mind-blowing!!! It was just like the Nutty Professor! He was clearly flustered to see me, dropped stuff, then fled the building. I could not help but laugh.

The moral of this story? Don't cheat on Aidan.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001

An old online friend found me after I referenced, on my journal, the Prodigy board we'd both posted to in the early '90s. We exchanged emails, briefly, but as we'd never met IRL, it was hard to really get back in touch.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001

"even made jokes about it"

I hope you mean made jokes about them. Because I would have. Lots of very mean, petty jokes.

What comes around goes around every single time, man. Great story, Aidan!

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001

Isn't that the best kind of revenge? They get divorced and he gets fat (and lives with his folks!)?

I want Aidan to post more stories.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001

Come on. Somebody who is O so very goth that she gets married in a BLACK LACE DRESS in a suburban Indiana Methodist church is a pretty easy target, is she not?

People, they say living well is the best revenge. Well, I say having the person you want to get revenge against continually fuck up his life of his OWN accord is the best revenge! Better for the karma!

This guy is a total fool. When we were dating, his greatest goal in life was to become emancipated from his holy roller parents. (He worked at Pizza Hut.) To be fair, his parents WERE fruity nutbars. But what did he end up actually DOING? When he got out of the Marines, he went to work at his family's roofing business. Not only does he STILL live with them, AND work for them -- he also continually places ads in the local small town paper trolling for business. Even using pictures of his son with MORTAL ENEMY to sell roofs!!! He has become an annoying capitalist nightmare of nepotism. And everybody in town knows it.

And also, he weighs 350 pounds.

A further example of his assness: he used to be a soccer player. A HOT soccer player. Before he weighed 350 pounds. So somehow he won a chance to win a MEEELLION DOLLARS by kicking a goal from 50 yards or something at the Indiana Twisters game (our professional soccer team). Well dickdork MISSED the goal, of course, but was interviewed by Small Town Newspaper anyway. What did he say in the interview? "Do you need a new roof? We sell good roofs! Come buy our roofs!"

Whatever. Pardon me as my eyes roll out of my head.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001

Oh and also his humiliation was complete back in high school when his wife (goth girl) actually had sex with his best friend WHILE SHE WAS PREGNANT with his child. Ex and his friend got into a fistfight during an assembly and everybody in school was like, "Why are they fighting???" It didn't take long for word to get around. It never does, when you're a cuckold.

God, between this and the "Don't"s thread, I might OD on nostalgia!!!

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001

Oh, Check it.

This girl who I went to highschool with and hated with a passion for many many years, I hadn't spoken to her for like two years. And then all of a sudden, I get this e-mail, bitching at me for not talking to her, ending with "I hope we can be friends!" Basically, she GOOGLE-d my e-mail address that she had found on a Forward sent by a mutual friend, that led her to my old personal site, which had a link to my new site/journal. So she found the new journal, read it all, wrote me, and proceeded to sign my guestbook repeatedly until she got ahold of me on IM.

To make matters worse, she called me the other night. I normally would be all up for a little TLC-reunion type thing, but this girl is Grade A Creepy and she's a little obsessive. Plus, there's this whole story about how she gave me a horrible wedgie at a party and ended up ripping my underwear, plus she almost had a show I was in canceled, because some stupid dipshits brought alcohol to a party, and she thought she was "doing a good deed."

In closing, I hate Google, and I hate this girl.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001

Lauren -- why are we always being looked up by some idiot we HATE??? Why can't it be that gorgeous and NICE guy who's now a single doctor???

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2001

If he's that cute and nice and a doctor, he ain't gonna be single...

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2001

Dude, A-dawg, I don't know. Do we have the mark of "Hey! Find us! We'll cry in fear, but try and find us all the same!" printed on our faces?

It was so bad. Because of course, to complete the circle of shame, I had written smack about her in some flashback to highschool entries. Detailed how our mutual crush turned to me and how he hated her. I felt really bad. Until she started signing my guestbook with three paragraph long "We really need to hang out together, girl!" messages and calling me. I felt like calling Justice Hunters or something on her ass.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 2001