Via mathiole @ Flickr.
My latest post from the Bed, Bitch and Beyond blog at Bitch Magazine, in which we explore what Time dubs “the retrosexual”: when reconnecting via Facebook gives you a second chance to hook up with that hot girl or guy you missed out on in high school, an experience poetically described as springing “from an intense, almost uncontrollable mixture of nostalgia and interest.”
Also featuring a blatant and revealing overshare about my own retrosexual experience with my high school crush.
Oh, this was a fun and hilarious post. I haven’t experienced a facebook-induced high-school-crush hookup. But I have found myself sorely disappointed in my crushes, many of whom now seem boring or too changed from how I remember them.
What timing… yesterday I sent a happy birthday message on Facebook to a guy I crushed on HARD for years. We’ve been friends on FB for awhile now, and I know he’s single and looking, and he even put my name down as his school crush in one of those obnoxious survey/questionnaire things. I want to ask him out to dinner, but have been trying to decide if I want to merely from nostalgia. Retrosexual, indeed!
@AmandaS: Good luck! If you’re single and looking and he is, why not get together and have a drink or dinner? There’s nothing inherently wrong with doing things because of nostalgia–it’s usually an emotion created by fond memories, and it never hurts to relive fond memories, IMO.
The absolute worst thing that could happen is that you’d have a nice time catching up but find out that the flame of your teenage ardor has died. Or maybe not! You never know, you might get a chance to have that hook-up after all!
I had the opposite effect of “retrosexuality” about a year after graduation. From 10th grade onward, I had a crazy crush on this guy, Jacob. It bordered on stalking at times, to be honest. I eventually grew up and out of it.
However, I decided, on a whim, one day during Sophomore year of college, to look him up on facebook. Well… he’s not as cute as I seemed to think. And looking back on how he treated me, he’s not such a nice person either. I think my relationships all improved after discovering that.
I’ve experienced this from the other side. I was the high school crush. My friend M from high school had always liked me, all through high school when we were dating other people, and then through college as well when we’d see each other occasionally over school breaks. We hooked up once during college, just some mild making out, and then went back to dating other people. Finally, the year I started law school, the stars aligned and we began a little fling, which M was clearly very excited about. We drunkenly slept together in our hometown, then I visited him in NYC, where he was living. Where we proceeded (sober) to have the worst sex of my entire life, hands down. I can’t even believe how bad it was. I didn’t ask, but I can’t imagine it was any good for him, either. After a few awkward days I skipped town and cut off all communication (yeah, I was a weenie). I acted like a jerk, but I hope I provided closure for M, who could at least know that sex between us was awful and that he hadn’t been missing out.