Every Step You Take I'll Be Watching You

Back in high school, a friend of mine had a H-U-G-E crush on a classmate.  Besides knowing his schedule, she knew about his hobbies, his address and his family...even though she never spoke a word to him. She was the first stalker I ever knew.

She wanted to take the bus to his neighborhood and walk past his house.  That's as serious is it gets when you're 16. Since her curiosity made me curious as well, I went with her.  Unfortunately, we got off the bus MILES from his house, and walked until almost dark.  We could barely see the house before we had to turn around and walk back to find another bus to take us back to town.  I was grounded for weeks for not telling my mother how late I was going to be.


Segue to last week: I updated my resume and new job status on a professional internet site, and received messages from many friends and former colleagues.  To my surprise, I also came across one from an old (35+ years ago) love interest:

I see  that congratulations are in order regarding your new promotion. It is always nice to see an old friend being recognized for their accomplishments. Good for you! 

I hope all is well with you and your family.

All the best,

Wow. And Crap. Because he forced me to stalk him on the web to see what he's been up to. He already knows stuff about me.

I initially met him through my BFF, and we had a momentous first date.  We went to a movie during a nor'easter and afterwards, couldn't get back to my beachfront apartment due to flooded roads. We we went to his apartment to wait out the storm...but not before I tripped and fell face first in his flooded parking lot. I had to change into his sweats while he dried my clothes including undies. Nice first impression.

He was six years older than me, divorced and...well, poor.  He was a PE teacher paying alimony and child support, and dates consisted of watching a lot of TV.  We shared in common that we were both dating college students on the weekends: he was dating a girl six years younger than me who was a camper where he worked in the summer as a counselor. Wingman had finally gone back to an out of state college the month before to get his degree. Ironically, it was the same college this guy went to.  We watched the 77 World Series from opposite sides of the couch since he was a huge Dodgers fan, and I had to cheer for the Yankees, which oh-by-the-way was Wingman's team.We at one point talked briefly and wildly about pulling up stakes and moving to Arizona together.

In the end, he was more committed to the camper, and I was more committed to the mini rock star.  We stopped seeing each other with no messy ending, no tears and somewhat no regrets.

At my high school reunion the month after Wingman died, a classmate came up and expressed her condolences. The old flame had read the obituary and told her, his sister-in-law, about it.  Then came this message from him and since then, I worked myself up into this crazy-female-widow-"Mr.-Destiny" fantasy...like my Paul-McCartney-whisking-me-away one.  What if things had been different? What if I had chosen Mr. Jock over Mr. Rock???

The internet gave me just one clue about what might have happened if I hung around.  He left teaching and became a VP for a major company.  But there was no info on family.  Not one picture of those blue eyes.  His wife's Facebook page won't let me in without permission, and after all, what fun is it to stalk someone if they know? In the end, I'm sure we both got what we wanted...after all, without Wingman, I wouldn't have my beautiful kids and grandkids.  And I really hope he has what he wanted..

So I'm back to looking up other things on the internet that are consuming my life.  Like what a grub is and what they're doing to my lawn.

Oh yeah, I looked up the classmate that we took the long walk to see his house back in high school.  There was a lot more info about him on the web than the guy I was stalking. 

And it was all very interesting...