Happy Birthday To the One That Got Away

“The one that got away” is a theme which has been around as long as love has been around — basically, since the beginning of time. Whether you’re single, married, divorced or whatever, you probably have a story about someone who got away. Or maybe even a couple of stories. My own “one that got away” is a little different — for starters because she got away more than once. Her name is Jennifer and today is her birthday.

I first met Jennifer in summer camp. If memory serves, I was 11 or 12 at the time. It was my only summer at this Connecticut camp and I didn’t get to know her well. Also, being a late bloomer in many ways, I certainly wasn’t experiencing any sexual attraction at the time. All I knew is that there was a girl named Jennifer at the camp who was very pretty and also friendly. As she would later remind me, she sometimes gave me her Slim Jims (a beef jerky snack that was popular in the 1970s). But again — I didn’t know her well. There was no Internet back then, of course, and Jennifer and I didn’t stay in touch beyond that summer.

The second time I met Jennifer is much more vivid. I was 14 years old, it was the beginning of ninth grade and she suddenly showed up in my class! This was surprising since she hadn’t attended that school the previous year. At 14, I was starting to figure out what girls were and Jennifer became my first bona fide crush. She was intelligent, prettier than ever and still approachable — and I was excited that she was now in my school. A year is an eternity when you’re 14 (unlike now!) and the days passed slowly during that long, unforgettable winter. The appeal of snow days was offset somewhat by the fact that if I didn’t go to school, I couldn’t see Jennifer. To this day, I can remember the songs that were popular on the radio at the time: “”Fantasy” by Earth, Wind & Fire, “Short People” by Randy Newman,” “We Are the Champions” by Queen and “Just the Way You Are” by the guy who would go on to become my favorite musician, Billy Joel.

I was not exactly popular when I was 14. I was short and skinny with glasses, acne and long hair. I was Jewish. I was not good at most sports. At 14, I looked like I was about 10. Jennifer, in contrast, was of normal height and pretty, and I was not the only boy in school who was smitten with her. For a brief period of time, however, it felt like I might have a chance. We were definitely friendly during ninth grade and she has the distinction of being the first girl ever to call me at my parents’ house.

Having said that, Jennifer was also friendly with some of the other boys at school. I remember one guy in particular whose name was Butch and who was probably, without exaggeration, a foot taller than me. Being short and insecure, I never mustered up the courage to ask Jennifer out. The following summer, my family moved several towns over. Now, on top of being the new kid in town, I lost Jennifer again. We would occasionally write letters or talk on the phone but it would be a long time before I would see her again.

Cut to the early ‘80s. Time it was and what a time it was! I had survived high school and was now a freshman at NYU. It was a pretty amazing time and place and the perfect backdrop for the next part of my story.

One afternoon in October, on the spur of the moment as I recall, I decided to call Jennifer. Cell phones didn’t exist yet, of course, and we had no landline in my dorm room — totally inconceivable to you Millennials, I know! I dialed Jennifer’s parents’ house from a pay phone on a busy Greenwich Village street and reached her mother. (Jennifer’s mother was a sweetheart… The less said about her father, the better.) To say that what I found out next surprised me would be putting it mildly. Jennifer’s mother told me that she and her husband had separated. Her younger sister had stayed in Connecticut but Jennifer was now living with her father — in New York City! Not only that but the apartment they’d moved to was in the East Village — about 10 minutes from my dorm! Jennifer’s mother gave me the address and said that I should pay her a visit. Needless to say, I did — right then and there, in a heightened state of awareness.

The next part of the story is the part that I’m still kicking myself over some three decades later — and when you find out what happened, you’ll understand why. I walked over to Jennifer’s father’s building as soon as I hung up with her mother. Fortuitously, she was home and he was not! She was surprised to say the least but she buzzed me in and I went upstairs. Jennifer had been struggling with some health issues but she was still pretty, still intelligent, still friendly. She sat on a couch in the apartment’s main room, I sat across from her on a chair and we caught up on things, both still in shock. Then, all of a sudden, she got up off the couch, walked over and sort of leaned into me — I think her hand was on my knee — and said, “I can’t believe you’re here!” Impulsively, I took her in my arms. I can’t remember whether I kissed her — I don’t think I did — but I do remember that my right hand was suddenly heading south, towards her ass. She said, “What are you doing?” But she said it with a giggle, not in an accusatory way. Still, it was enough to make me freeze. What was I doing?!? Either I wasn’t sure what I was doing, how to do it or how to answer the question because I suddenly stopped in mid-grope. Jennifer returned to the sofa and the rest of my visit played out with that little physical tangent unacknowledged and unexplored.

I saw Jennifer a few more times during my freshman year. But our meetings were sporadic and not helped by the fact that her father was often around. In addition, she was more sophisticated than I was (or so I thought at the time), she was often ill, we were both busy and I never got another clear green light. The following fall, I returned to Manhattan for my sophomore year at NYU and Jennifer left the city to begin her freshman year at a college upstate. This time, we would not have contact again for close to 30 years.

Fast forward now to December 2012. It’s the holiday season — a potentially magical time, in my opinion. I’ve been on Facebook for a couple of years, and have reconnected with my college roommate and some other old friends during that time. But I haven’t been able to track down Jennifer. I’m not sure whether this is because she simply isn’t on Facebook or because now that she’s married, she has arguably the most common female name (Jennifer Jones) in the Western world. [I did find out in the ’90s that she had married a man whose surname was Jones.] Do you have any idea how many people named Jennifer Jones there are in the world?!? Be that as it may, I continue to search Facebook for her every now and then, to no avail. Until one day in 2012, shortly before Christmas. This time around, my search yields a concrete, positive result for the first time; Jennifer turns up, using both her maiden and married names, hyphenated! I’m shocked.

I wind up sending her a Facebook message but I’m not even sure she’ll see it, let alone write me back. It’s been many years after all, and we have no mutual friends. Plus, she doesn’t seem to go on Facebook very often. I wait awhile, hear nothing, and decide to send off a second message to the effect of, “I guess you’re not interested in reconnecting, best wishes” (probably not a great idea in retrospect!). A couple more weeks pass and I basically give up. Then, one morning in January, an email lands in my inbox that says, “Jennifer Jones wants to be friends on Facebook.” Being that I’m half asleep and that I still think of her by her maiden name, it takes me a minute to even realize who Jennifer Jones is. When I do realize, I am thrilled and accept her friend request.

That was about three years ago now. Since then, Jennifer has deleted her Facebook account, reactivated it and deleted it again. While I miss seeing her status updates and her frequent responses to my status updates, we keep in touch periodically by regular email. Not long after she sent me that friend request, Jennifer reverted back to using only her married names, Jones — which makes it even more amazing that I found her because there was a very small window of time where she was also using her maiden name.

Equally amazing is the fact that our correspondence has exceeded my expectations. Not only do we still have things to discuss besides the past — which isn’t always the case when you reconnect with someone from your youth — but very early on, Jennifer cut through the superficial stuff and began writing me about more personal issues. Among other things, I’ve been impressed by how open she is and by how she’s able to convey the challenges she has experienced without sounding like she’s complaining. We’ve been honest with each other about our respective health issues (and we both have more than most people); we both prefer fall to the other seasons; we’re on a similar page in terms of being spiritual but not traditionally religious; and she has complimented me not only about my writing but about my looks (which feels pretty bizarre after all these years!). I truly feel ‘seen’ by her and I appreciate the fact that we share both a past history and a present connection.

I’m not going to lie; it’s hard not to wonder what might happen if Jennifer was available. But she isn’t. She is still married to the same guy — an Australian man who is considerably older than we are and who, to be honest, sounds like someone I would get along well with under other circumstances. I have a pretty broad social circle but I can count the number of happy marriages I know on two hands at most. From what I can tell, Jennifer’s is one of them. So… I stay in touch with Jennifer and look forward to her emails but I date other women. I still hope but I don’t expect. I try to be there for her but not too much, if that makes sense. And I really am glad to be back in touch with her, in any context, regardless of what does or doesn’t happen down the road. Finding your first crush after three decades is bound to be interesting; finding your first crush and still having a lot to talk about after all that time is a rare, pleasant surprise; and finding your first crush on Facebook when she now goes by the name Jennifer Jones is, I believe, close to a one in a million occurrence. I don’t believe in God — at least not in any traditional sense — but I have to believe I was destined to find Jennifer again, perhaps by something bigger than what I can see, and that there’s a reason she kept (and keeps) returning to my life.

So happy birthday to Jennifer, to the one that got away more than once… The one who got married, traveled across the globe and back and who, despite the fact that we’ve never actually been a couple, may in fact be the love of my life.