At 49, I wasn’t much like the other women I knew. I was single, childless and filled with an endless need for adventure. After almost 18 years of teaching, I started off on a year-long study sabbatical, which meant taking classes once a week and spending the rest of my days going on long walks in the park, studying French and writing. All that was missing was romance.
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While I have always gotten As in my courses, I was only getting big, fat Fs in romantic relationships, forever choosing the wrong men. But I remained hopeful that love would come my way. A friend of mine who got married at 44 joked, “I’m on my second marriage now; I just never had my first one.”
Like most, I had tried online dating, but not growing up on the internet it always felt awkward having my profile out there. I dreamed of setups and reconnecting with old friends in lieu of swiping right. I went on a few internet dates yet found them less than stellar. But after sifting through pictures of my exes and their happy-seeming families on social media, I’d always find myself returning to the apps.
As I was finishing off my first study sabbatical semester and gearing up for a winter-break cat-sitting gig in a tiny village in the southwest of France, I opened the apps again. I’d decided I needed a distraction from my distraction before I left.
That’s when I saw him. I couldn’t look away. Was that really him? After all this time?
It was my summer-camp crush, the one who I met at age 11 and apparently still seemed to hold a torch for all these years later. I looked closer at his familiar face. His name was the same. His age. His vocation. But how could that be? The last time I saw that face, it was on Facebook, smiling in pictures of ski trips and sporting events with his wife and two kids. Was he a swinger? Separated?
I zoomed in on the pictures. It was really him. He had miraculously maintained his boyish good looks at the age of 50 — in fact, he surpassed them. Still an athlete, he was fit and muscular. He was, all these years later, still (so I felt, anyway) out of my league.
My history with The Athlete goes back to his first summer at sleepaway camp. He was 12, I was 11, and we became fast friends. If he had attended camp the year before, I probably wouldn’t have spoken to him. I barely spoke to anyone back then. I was painfully shy, so much so that it sparked the concern of my parents and teachers.
But that summer, in Shack 5, I learned to talk, and I didn’t stop. It was like all those thoughts and feelings I had inside that first decade just came pouring out. He was a gregarious handsome hunk, with sandy brown hair and a magnificent tan. My brother was his counselor, and so the three of us spent a lot of time together.
I thought he was cute and enjoyed the connection we were forming, the pats on the back and the smiles. Toward the end of the session, a few days before I was to return home, our camp put on a play in the old drama pavilion. I sat on a wooden bench in front of my brother. The Athlete pushed to sit next to me, brushing up against my mosquito-bite-ridden legs. One scene was particularly moving, and I found myself teary eyed and about to cry. He inched a little closer as I held in the tears.
“Josh, your sister is so cute!” I heard him say to my brother. Then he pinched my cheek and I began to melt. He moved closer to me and put his arm around me.
Life was so perfect that day, the cute boy gently touching my face, the arm around my shoulders, the play, the warm country air. When his arm touched my shoulder, a rush went through me like a lightning bolt. I liked it. I liked him. Maybe he would be my boyfriend
Just a few days later, he asked out a more outspoken girl.
I was devastated, but we remained friends. His attention began to wane, and I started not to like summer camp as much.
The next summer I shortened my time, and our sessions didn’t coincide. The following year, when he was 14 and I was 13, we overlapped again. Maybe this would be our year? He was now a handsome, popular teenager with muscles replacing his thin frame.
“Do you remember me?” he asked on the first day.
I nodded and he gave me a hug. I looked up at him, but he focused on the friend I was with. Our banter was no longer there. I think that was the only time I spoke to him all summer.
Now in my late-40s, I was so freaked out seeing his profile that I got off the site immediately, as if, somehow, he could see me looking at him. I could have left it there, but I wanted to know more. I wasn’t that timid camp kid anymore, but a grown woman who knew how to take risks.
A few days later, I went back on. The Athlete was there again, the first face I saw. I was at a crossroads: If I swiped left, he’d be gone and I could move on, but I’d never know if I could reclaim that camp crush. If I swiped right and it wasn’t a match, I would be that heartbroken young girl on the benches once again.
I finally decided to be bold. To my surprise, we were a match. Little yellow dancing bees to prove it. Now what?
I waited a few hours to calm down, in shock that my long-lost crush just “liked” me. Then I sent a short message, assuming he didn’t recognize me. He sent one back: Are you kidding me? Then another, and we texted just about every day. He was, in fact, separated, and ready for something new.
Since it was pre-COVID, we planned to meet up at a pub in my neighborhood before I left for France. I can’t remember ever being so excited for a date. I was giddy, talking in a high-pitched voice, dancing around, showing his pictures to my close friends.
I had to contain myself. Maybe we were just meeting as friends? Maybe he would change his mind once he saw me. But I waltzed in, head held high. When I entered, he grinned that warm smile of his. He came close to me, hugged me tightly then grabbed my black woolen cap from my head and just held onto it lovingly.
We stared at each other in disbelief that we were together again after all this time. We found our way to a corner table. Once again, we sat on wooden benches — this time putting on our glasses to read the menu. We talked for hours about our lives as they were now. I accidentally brushed his hand grabbing the bottle to refill our water; he didn’t flinch. Then I just did it. I grabbed those same hands that pinched me all those years ago and held them. We didn’t let go the whole night. Sitting there in our winter clothes, I finally got my summer courtship.
I had to wait more than 30 years to get my camp romance. I don’t know if it’s going to last or fizzle out like it did all those years ago. For now, it’s still pretty special. It was worth the wait.
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