A recent thread about confusing someone years later with the same name reminds me of something from the year 2000.
My parents informed me that they had received a letter addressed to me, at their home address. I got it from them, and it was an invitation to my high school's 10-year reunion. I hadn't expected a 10-year reunion, so I hadn't really considered prior to that whether I would like to go to such a thing.
Keep in mind that I had not yet played poker in 2000, so my "poker life" was not something which would have come up at the reunion. I was just a boring software engineer at the time.
I went to a different high school than most people from my junior high, due to a weird way they drew maps for the school district. There was a high school 2.5 miles away, and another 6 miles away, and I was sent to the one 6 miles away. Both were good schools, and I wasn't in the awful LA district, so there was no gang problem or anything like that (this was a big concern in the '80s).
However, the downside was that I didn't know many people at the school. It was almost like moving to a new town. Everyone already had their groups of friends, and it was hard to integrate myself into them. I definitely would have been better off going to the other high school, at least socially.
With that in mind, I didn't have much of a desire to go to the reunion. I didn't know most of my classmates well, hadn't gone to elementary or junior high school with them, so why would I give a shit what they were doing 10 years later? And why would they give a shit about me?
I was about 90% decided to skip it, but then emails started arriving. This is because I gave my email address to the reunion organizer, upon receiving the letter requesting it. She started firing out group emails to gage the level of interest in the reunion, which wasn't even 100% happening yet.
Caring little what any of these people thought, I gave a few joke responses to the emails. A few people played along with me and joked back, which I'm sure got to irritate everyone else on the list. However, one notable name seemed to be enjoying my remarks, and then sent me a private email telling me how entertaining she was finding me. I'll call her "Ann" (not her real name).
Why was Ann notable to me? Because I had a gigantic crush on her in high school, but never said anything about it. Now, 10 years later, she was taking notice of me enough to privately email me and tell me how much she was enjoying my banter in the group messages.
Despite really liking Ann in high school, I didn't know much about her. She was one of those students who hadn't gone to my other schools. She was in some of my high school classes, and I thought she was both really pretty and really smart, and also had a quiet, down-to-earth personality. But at the time I didn't really have an opening to get to know her, so we barely spoke during our entire time in high school.
But now here she was. I pretended it was no big deal to get the email from her, and of course did not tell her anything about liking her in high school. I thanked her for complimenting my remarks in the group, and then just kinda made small talk with her. It worked really well. She was emailing me several times per day, and was really opening up to me. She even told me about her struggles with depression, doubts about her career, and other personal stuff. But it mostly wasn't downer stuff like that. The general tone of the emails were fun, upbeat, and two people getting to know one another.
I acted very attentive and supportive in the emails, but was careful not to come off too asskissy. At no point did I ever make reference to my 1980s crush on her. She had absolutely no idea, and I figured I'd wait for her to express some kind of romantic interest in me before revealing this. I did find out that she was single and had no children. She also sent me a then-current picture of herself, and she was still very pretty.
My peak of optimism came about a week before the reunion. She wrote something like, "I have very little interest in the reunion itself. I don't really care about any of these people. If it weren't for you being there, I'd skip it entirely. But I really want to see you, and I'm excited about it!"
I wanted to take that email, travel back 10 years, and show my 18-year-old self.
The reunion night came. It was boring, as expected. But what about Ann?
Well, that was my question. She wasn't there. I searched the entire room, and while the event got pretty good attendance, Ann was nowhere to be found.
"Maybe she's just running late", I thought to myself.
Nope. An hour in, still no sign of her. Damnit. Did she get cold feet? That would have surprised me, because I never said anything implying any kind of romantic or sexual interest in her. I was going to wait to see how things went at the reunion before possibly trying to take it in that direction.
Finally, about 90 minutes into it, Ann showed up. She was with a female friend (also in my high school class), and hiding in the corner of what was already a darkish room.
I said hi to her. She looked at me like I was from another planet. Thinking perhaps she had me confused for someone else, I said, "I'm Todd.. the one you've been emailing with for the past month."
She kind of nodded her head and let out a very quiet "Hi", then just kinda stared out into space. I had remembered her being very shy in high school, so perhaps this was what was going on, but it was so weird. I didn't even think this was due to any disappointment in how I looked, or anything like that. I hadn't changed that much since my senior year of high school, other than looking a little bit older.
Highly disappointing, to say the least. I attributed this whole thing to her possibly being nervous that she was leading me on in the emails, and then was too shy to actually show up and see it through. So she probably almost skipped it, and then showed up and hid in the corner with her friend. I walked away and didn't interact with her for the rest of the night. I observed that she remained in the corner the entire time and didn't interact with anyone else, either. So weird.
That was the last time I heard from her. I considered emailing her and asking wtf happened, but there was really no point, so I didn't.
So what does this have to do with confusing two people with the same name?
I'll get to that in the next post.
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Originally Posted by Sloppy Joe
