I saw Fandango’s response to today’s Throwback Thursday. It isn’t normally a prompt I follow but today I saw a few questions that seemed interesting. I’ve answered those I can.
I won’t answer about my first love, because I kinda knew she was a badd’un from early on. I wanted a girlfriend so I stayed with her. It made her easier to get over, I suppose, but first time around it was still six months or so.
Anyway. She’s out of my head. I’ve no thoughts except that I was well rid of her. Sue is much more interesting.
How old were you when you had your first heartbreak? (For some it might be well into adulthood and that’s fine, too!)
18/9
Who broke your heart – first names only?
Sue. I’ve fictionalised her on my blog before.
Do you remember how the breakup happened?
She had an ex, from where she grew up. All through the relationship with me, she assured me that he was history. We each went back to our parents’ for Christmas. Very lovey-dovey. We exchanged (paper, in those days) letters each day.
Anyway, at some point he engineered a meet with her, said he wanted to get back together.
The lesson for me was not to trust rebound women. I never allowed myself to get serious about anybody on the rebound again. It was touch-and-go with Mrs Bump for a while.
Did you have a ring or token of your love? Did you return it?
Nothing apart from memories.
Did you think this was true love?
Absolutely
Did you play any sad songs to soothe the pain? If so, do you remember the name of the song?
When we were together, “our song” was Easy by The Commodores, I played that a lot.
I also latched on to Angel Eyes by Wet Wet Wet, and I’ve Been In Love Before by The Cutting Crew, Neither meant anything to us as a couple but they were released shortly after we split, when I was still suicidal.
If you were an adolescent, were your parents sympathetic or were they of the “it’s only puppy love” school of thought?
n/a
How long did it take you to get over it all?
A year. Most of my girlfriends tended to take about a year before I wanted to be with someone else. Some I cared for less; that was quicker.
Do you remember this person fondly or is it someone you prefer to forget?
God, no. She was the best girlfriend I ever had, easy. Because it was so young, it was just explosive. I never reached those heights even with Mrs Bump, because my priority then was “not to get hurt”, so it was a far slower burn.
Obviously Mrs Bump, though, has other qualities which made her marriage material. But we were both in our thirties so went into it with our eyes open.
After all was said and done, was it for the best or did you remain longing for a love lost?
Meh, life experience. Things are always for the best, as long as we learn from them. I look back and still think of her as “the best”. But of course we were just teenagers, so never considered “life” things like marriage or kids. We were together months, not years. It’s important not to deify her. Besides, I don’t regret where I ended up with Mrs Bump, but I definitely think of Sue and smile.
It would have been nice, now that we’re both of an age where you don’t go running off with someone, if she had got in touch at some point. With the interweb n’all. Just to compare how our lives turned out. (I Googled her a few times, but never seriously.) My name is unusual enough, I’m sure she’d have been able to find me.
Maybe she just did not feel as strongly as I felt? I mean, we said all the “I Love You”s and watnot, but I learned later to take them with a pinch of salt. Maybe she’s happily married with fifteen grands, and it never crossed her mind? Maybe she thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie? So while I still feel a teeny bit sad she never got in touch, I realise I’ll never know. Meh.
Mister Bump 
Young love can be so, precarious to navigate. I suppose it says something about us when we still have fond memories for someone who hurt us. I always think back and realize just like everything else, we need to learn how to love and how to be loved. I am sorry for all the heartache of adolescence. It was nice having you participate this week. Thanks for joining us.
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I think these affairs as a youngster are a rite of passage, to harden us up for the road ahead. I consider myself lucky to have known such wonderful people on the way; I’d hope we all could say the same.
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We are often blessed by the people who cross our path. Loving and losing is, I suppose, how we learn what love is.
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I think you’re absolutely right.
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Loved reading this. I like it when a man can open up about his feelings honestly. Great ink, Pete!
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Well, I’ve had thirty years to figure out the role she played in my life. How important she was.
I knew her for a relatively brief length of time, it was perfect while we were together, and it ended quite abruptly, in that I only saw her once or twice after we split.
So it never really had a chance to go sour. I only really have that perfection to remember.
That’s not a real relationship. Real relationships involve that, yes, but also months of frustration as the relationship chokes to death. Or babies keeping us up all night with their crying. Or, as my wife now knows, the shock of waking up married to this grumpy disabled guy. I only ever got the “smooth” with her and was spared the “rough”. So my memories are real, but skewed.
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Our lives are made up of a lot of “what ifs” all strung together. Most of the time we never know the answers to those questions that come to us in the early morning and leave us with a whimsical smile or sometimes reduce us to sobs. Happened to me last week. It was a Saturday morning and my husband left the house very early to go fishing. The sound of the garage door woke me and there was no going back to sleep so I decided to write. Some profoundly melancholic memories washed over me and I wrote through my tears. When I was finished writing, I read my poem and listened to the music I chose to go with it. I sat here in my darkened room sobbing … literally sobbing as if my dearest friend in all the world had died. In a way, that’s what happened and I wept for an hour while the Moody Blues sweetly asked, “Isn’t life strange?” It is very strange indeed, my friend. It’s a pleasure talking with you, Pete. 🌹
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Me too. You probably wrote pretty well. I do find it is sometimes easier to focus on what we lost rather than what we have.
Fishing, eh? God help you 🤣 Gives you free time, I suppose 🤣
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I love my free time. We all need it or we’d go crazy! And he brings home good eats! 😂
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I had sardines the other week. When I discovered I was supposed to gut them, they went straight in the bin!
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I like sardines … as long as they’re cleaned, in a can and ready to be eaten. I draw the line at cleaning fish.
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You can’t get sardines here any more. Just one of those things to have disappeared from the shelves.
I used to like them canned, too. In tomato sauce, on toast. These were real sardines. Lidl had a Greek special on so I got a bag of a dozen frozen sardines. There are nine still in the freezer.
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Yeah … no! Feed the local kitties if you don’t have one of your own.
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Yeah I should have done. Two permanently hungry mouths here. What does he fish btw? Trout around here.
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No trout. He fishes strictly saltwater and goes for sea bass, porgies, flounder and fluke mostly –delicate white fish, easy to clean/cook and even easier to eat! Bill’s been fishing all his life and goes out on his boat every Saturday with his buddy Joe. Sometimes he takes the grands along. I love to go fishing but I get dreadfully seasick so no boat for me! BTW – are you on Facebook? Look me up; I’m not hard to find and I have a group you may (or may not) be interested in. It’s called Write Here.
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I used to hang around the north coast of France a lot. There was plenty of sea fishing there. I could have eaten it every day. In the UK, we tend only to have big fishing ports on the east coast which go hunting for cod or haddock on a commercial scale. You know, deep frozen before it leaves the boat. We do have other harbours but it has pretty much died out and is smallscale. The only fish you can buy is frozen from the supermarket. There are no fishmongers any more. Sad really.
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That is sad. There’s nothing like fresh caught fish! Not sure if this comment is being duplicated; the thread here is pretty long!
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It was duplicated but I just thought you really, really meant it.
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Thanks for joining in Pete. Young love effects us in deep ways. It is no surprise you have some fond memories.
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You caught me on a good (or bad) day, whichever way you look at it 🤣. I needed the escape.
But it would be a great pity if we didn’t have fond memories, wouldn’t it? You know, to focus on the breakup or the aftermath rather than the wonderful times. I think that would say a lot about me, if that’s how I thought.
I knew a guy once, said he would not get a pet for his child, “because pets die eventually”. Conveniently neglecting the years of sheer joy you have in between, bringing pleasure to each other’s lives. What sort of an attitude is that?
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A sad one
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My hubby was my one and only, but that leads to regrets in itself. Would playing the field have been beneficial. Still undecided on that one
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I’m 100% that having some life experience under my belt was invaluable. For me.
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That is sad. There’s nothing like fresh caught fish!
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Without going into a full “Throwback” response, I’ve always wondered too. Don’ think oddly of me but there are more than one “formers” I’d like to chat with. Just to know, you know? Don’t know as I was mortally wounded (at the time) as you were but even with the hurt, there are as you said fond memories. Good read.
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I suspect it is to lie sleeping dogs lie. After all, once you say “hello”, where is there to go?
I’d like to think it is not because they had such a shitty time, they felkt well rid. But we never know.
I have successfully stayed in touch with a couple of exes but they are not the general case.
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