A few weeks ago I read a blog post at Mommy Wizdom entitled A Blast From The Past, where she thought that an old friend was contacting her after many years because she wanted or needed something from her.  I commented that maybe the girl was just looking for a friend again.

I try not to think the worst of people.  I try hard.

But when confronted by almost the same situation, my cynicism kicked in and I immediately wondered what he wanted. Where my situation differs is that she had actually been friends with the person that contacted her, where as the guy that contacted me had been more along the lines of a passing acquaintance.

Of course living in small town PA, I have known him since kindergarten, we were never really friends.  I switched schools my sophomore year and didn’t even go to school with him anymore.  Until we both ended up working at the same place after school, yeah we kidded around at work and such, but still I wouldn’t have considered him a friend.  A few years later he started dating my best friend, but we rarely saw each other then.

My best friend left him pretty much at the alter, and then hooked up with his cousin and got pregnant.  I would have thought that this would have made me persona -non-grata by association, I was and still am her best friend, and I fully supported her decision to cancel the wedding just two days before it was scheduled. After that I never really kept up with what happened to him, other than that I knew from mutual friends that he hadn’t taken the break up well, and had joined the service (I don’t even know what branch) to get away.

So why in the world would he contact me nearly fifteen years later.

He found me on classmates.com, where I signed up months ago, answered a few (very few, like marital status and number of children) questions and promptly forgot about it.  Occasionally I’d get a message from the site trying to get me to upgrade so that I can contact old friends.  Well, there was no one on there that I really felt like contacting so I deleted the messages and continued to ignore the site.

I was quite surprised when I got a message on Wednesday telling me I had a message from Shawn, but curiosity got the better of me and I logged in to see what he had to say, fulling expecting it to be a nasty note or a plea for my best friend’s new contact information.

Instead it was just his email address and phone number asking me to please contact him.  So against my better judgment, I shot off an email to him with my contact information.  Much to my surprise, when I went to leave for a meeting that night I dug up my cell phone and saw that he had called almost immediately after I sent the email, so I told myself I would try to get back to him soon.

After the meeting was over I once again checked my phone and he had called back three more times.  Apparently he was anxious to get a hold of me for some reason, so I called him back.

He seemed quite nervous, and did the small talk thing.  “hey I saw your profile, just wanted to see how you were… blah, blah, blah…”  He never asked for her phone number, or berated me for encouraging her to leave him all those years ago.  Never said anything that gave me any clue what so ever to why he seemed so desperate to talk to me.

The next morning I woke up to this email:

it was really nice talking 2 u i acted like a dumbass i had a few question to ask but i did not know where 2 start we will talk soon an it should be better take care i am always here if u need or want someone 2 talk 2 4 real be good love shawn

This immediately put me on the defensive, him admitting that there were some things he wanted to ask me…  I once again tried not to think the worst, but the message sat in my inbox unanswered for hours while I tried to decide whether or not just to delete it and move on with life.

I eventually answered it:

It was nice talking to you too!  So ask away…

I’m always around too!  Luv, L.

The following emails have been sent (slightly edited to take out personal stuff… Town names, people names… etc.) and I’m still just as confused:

I mean so much time has gone by some change an some can’t get rid of the kid inside what’s ur new likes an dislikes did u make the 10yr get together love shawn

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Yeah it is hard to believe that we’ve been out of school for almost fifteen years now.  I know I don’t feel that much older than I did back then…  But then my kids remind me of it…  Damn Kids!

I didn’t make the (school we attended together) reunion, but we had a (school I graduated from) get together out at Brad L’s house a few years back.  It wasn’t much fun, to tell the truth.  I spent most of the evening listening to girls telling me why they got fat…  Amazingly enough none of the got fat from overeating…  They all had an excuse!  But then so did I, I was six months pregnant at the time…

New likes and dislikes?  Hmmm…  That’s a tough one…  I still do most of the same stuff I did back then, except that I rarely drink… Because it makes me stupid, and then I run my mouth and get into trouble…  Oh wait, that is what I did back then too… Hmm…  I’m much more content to hang out at home with the kids now than I used to be…  But then Russ (hubby) and I blame that on the fact that there’s nothing to do around here…

Yeah, I’m still cynical and sarcastic…  Maybe even more so now…

So does any of that babble answer your questions?

Love, L.

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Sounds like we have a lot in common where has time when @ times I wish I was still in school, don’t tell 2many people that. I love the outdoors walking fishing hunting just trying 2 enjoy life an have some fun 2 . I got crazy with pets 4 awhile but I still have a zoo until the ex gets her pets. Feel free 2 call later after 5:30 when I get my trun over generic soft tabs cialis an line the guys up with their work. This cool hope 2 here from u soon love shawn

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I can’t say that I wish I was still in school…  But I know there were times when I did…  The only way I feel older is the aches and pains… but that’s not really from age, it’s from a bike accident in 2000, or at least that’s what I blame it on… Because I’m still only 25, have been for eight years now…

I know how the pet thing goes…  I’ve hated dogs my whole life, now I’ve got three… it’s like having three more kids…  for a long time we had various reptiles in aquariums but lucky the kids, and hubby are growing out of that phase, now we just have the dogs and hermit crabs…  but my daughter is trying to talk us into a hamster or gerbil…  I’m just afraid my JRT would kill it, he likes to hunt for mice…

I have to say, I’m not much of a phone person…  In fact I really suck at remembering to call anyone back…  But I’m great at email, and check it about 100 times a day, because that’s how my clients contact me 99% of the time…  But feel free to call, I do usually at least make an effort to answer my phone…

So what the hell made you contact me of all people?  Who are you really looking to get in touch with?

Luv, L.

I could hold back any longer – I just had to ask and I couldn’t make myself do it when he called to chat that day, so I waited and asked in an email… He talked mostly about his upcoming divorce, but I still don’t know who’s choice it was – his or hers, and I’m not nosy enough to ask…  I wish I was!

no i was looking to talk to you if you wanted to. believe it or not off an on thru school i always had a thing for you but felt i had no chance i hell with you. i can still remember when u would tan u would put a playboy bunnie on your hip area. i just wanted to talk to a friend. so what was the bike accident???? hey if yall go to NC an need a back down or back you can stop by just let me know when she left she left a mess to an i would like to straigthen up i’m not workin this weekend i have the kids an i’ll do the clean starting tomorrow.
i guess i havn’t changed to much i have a thing for sittin back watch a movie with a fire in the fireplace. as far as my work goes i do alittle of everything i am a machinist,welder,handyman for power plants an industial work. i’m still the same smartass when i get joken around i hope we can keep this up, hell i’m happy to talk with you an the shit i have been goin thru not much makes me happy. well if you have any questions you would like to ask me ask away. i will check my email 2morrow an i will call you sometime 2morrow if thats still ok, don’t let me bug u 2 much unless u r ok with it. talk soon take care be good talk again soon love shawn
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Why is it that everybody who supposedly had a thing for me in high school, waits until five, ten or fifteen years later to tell me?  Was I that unapproachable in school?  Yeah, I guess I probably was, unless you were six foot two, blonde and had the last name of Shaffer….  I guess it was up until junior year that I was always with the Shaffer twins… (He had picked on me during a previous phone conversation about the guys I hung out with in school, as I was always found in the presence of the twins, a couple of their cousins and another of their friends.  Everyone used to refer to the five of them as my bodyguards, although antibiotics only the one twin was actually my boyfriend.)

I can’t believe you remember that stupid bunny sticker…  Even I had forgotten about that.

The bike accident was my own stupidity, blah, blah, blah…. (edited embarrassing details of a stupid motorcycle accident.)

Right now it’s looking like hubby and the kids might go down to NC while I stay here with the dogs.  Usually when we travel Billy stay at our place to take care of the animals, but with them having the twins, it’s really not an option anymore.  And my sisters are terrified of my JRT because he’s so hyper…  But they might wait until next weekend to go.  I can’t believe we’re even considering driving to NC for a tractor, but a nearly new John Deer for free is just too good to pass up, or so hubby and my father tell me…

We too often spend the evenings either curled up in front of the fire, or in front of the tv with a movie, okay, with Russ sleeping through a movie and me reading through it…  Unfortunately, our fireplace and TV are in different rooms, guess I didn’t plan the house too well…

Well, I think we all have those times in our lives that everything just sucks, I’m so happy that I’m not really there anymore, I truly am happy with my life…  I’m glad talking to me can at least make you smile.  (I would have thought it would be the total opposite, given the history.) I like talking to you too, it’s nice to talk to someone whom doesn’t just think of my as mom, but instead remembers the crazy stunts I pulled in school…

Believe me, I’ll let you know if you bug me…  I never was one to keep my mouth shut…  But maybe I should have been…

I don’t have AOL, but I do occasionally use yahoo messenger…

So what the hell heck does he want?  He knows I’m happily married, he hasn’t asked a thing about my best friend…  I think my guy radar is way off now, I guess I’ve been married too long to keep it in use…

I honestly don’t know why he chose me out of all of the people we went to school with…  Shouldn’t I be the least likely, as I’m associated with a very bad time in his life?

Now I know most people would immediately jump to the conclusion that he’s trying to hook up, but once again he knows that I’m happily married, so I know that’s most likely not the case.  And I’m not most women.  In high school (and beyond) I’ve had few girl friends, my friends were mainly guys, and not just guys I dated.

I grew up hanging around construction sites, or stuck out in the sticks and too young to drive.  The only people near my age within walking distance (and I’m not talking a mile – more like 7 miles as it was that far from the Shaffers to our house, but we all walked it many many times!) were guys, including the Shaffer boys and their cousins.  So for most of the summers, these were the people I was with.

I just seemed to get along better with guys than girls…  There was no competition.  Not overt competition, but you know how high school girls are, even friends are always trying to one up each other, especially when there are guys in the vicinity…

Guys aren’t like that though, they’re more into the overt competitions “I can lift more than you…”, “Let’s race and see who wins…”, etc…  These guys though, well except for the one I was dating, just thought of me as one of the guys, or as C’s girlfriend…  We spent our summers on the atvs back in the game lands, in my father’s garage trying to fix the atvs, or out at the ball field playing softball (and that’s when they would remember I was a girl, because I sucked at it.  I may have been the best on the quads, but sucked at anything that had a ball flying at my face.) My house was the central location, so everyone hung out there (plus, we had a pool and the atvs were my dads.)

It was rare that I ever hung out with other girls, until I met Mandy, my best friend, and Shawn’s ex-fiance.

So most of my old friends are guys… Yeah, I know I’m long winded… just trying to explain a little bit to give the true picture…

But as for Shawn, he was never one of the people I hung out with…  I think he may have been at my house a few times for pool parties, because I invited everyone that I worked with…  But I never considered him a friend…