I met Marie almost nineteen years ago at the bookstore. She was three years older than I was, but we got along marvelously. We had similar intellects, values, and senses of humor. She was hella cool. -5.

Well, it didn’t take long for me to like her—as in walk-around-in-a-haze, write-her-stupid-poetry-that-no-one-would-ever-read-but-me like her. Couple that with a well-meaning but ultimately misguided coworker who nudged us together, and we went out a couple of times. But it didn’t work out. I was just too young. (21 vs. 18 is a huge three years; perhaps the hugest three years there is.)

Back in the day, I’d have described her as “breaking my heart,” but that was before I’d experienced genuine heartbreak. She was a crush in my late adolescence—a strong crush, but a crush nonetheless.

We got past that mild weirdness—a huge step for me, at that age; remaining in contact with someone I’d formerly “dated” was impressive—and rediscovered most of our previous rapport. We just fell in like Legos. She’d stop to chat “for a sec” on the way out the door, and 45 minutes later, she’d finally leave. You know what I mean.

I happened upon Marie’s email address recently when helping another employee who works at her company (and I know that sounds all stalkery, but it really was a freak accident, so know thyself carnally). I pinged her, she was happy to hear from me, we had lunch two or three times, and it was definitely Legos again. No time had passed. I think we sat at Viet Huong for two hours and fifteen minutes the first time I saw her again. It was tons of fun.

So I got excited about having her and her beau, into whom she seriously was, to our house for dinner, or perhaps our Christmas party. I wanted her to meet Lea, and Lea her. Lea was game, and Marie was enthusiastic when I’d mention it in person, but she never answered me when I tried to make email plans with her. Ultimately she quit answering any email I sent altogether.

So now it’s most of a year since we’ve even communicated at all, after reestablishing contact so wonderfully. I have no idea what happened. I can’t help feeling a bit duped (and being a tad pissed) that apparently I valued our current interaction more than she did. Shit, that part of it felt “just like old times” in all of the wrong ways.

How about “cool but flaky”? Is that fair?

Thanks to gethyp.net for the image.