Somebody's Dad

by Gwen Cooper — September 21, 2007

Nothing makes you start feeling as your age like learning that the boyfriends you remember from high school and college have gotten married and had children. Sometimes the news comes at you by surprise--a wedding invitation or birth announcement in the mail, for example. Other times (as in my case) you randomly decide to Google an ex and find out more than you would have expected.

And so it was that I learned, yesterday, that my very first real boyfriend--who I met when I was 15 and dated for the next three years--is now living in Atlanta with a wife and two children. Initially, it was interesting to note that he ended up marrying the first girl he started dating after the two of us finally broke up during my freshman year of college. But it was learning about the two kids that really threw me for a loop. It was hard to reconcile the image I had in my head of a shy, sarcastic, overly book-smart teenager with this new image of somebody's dad.

The nature of first love is such that, at the time, you know for an absolute fact that you will never, ever fall in love with anybody else ever again. I remembered the two of us in high school together, making plans to go to the same college, eventually get an off-campus apartment together, and then get married as soon as we had our degrees. We would spend hours talking about what we would name our kids, and what they might look like (his blue eyes? my black hair?), and how we would support each other's careers. It was all silly, of course. Some people do end up marrying their "high school sweethearts," but most of us travel much longer and further in the world before finally finding the person we're meant to settle down with.

There was no jealousy, no remorse, no regrets when I found out what his life looks like--at least on the surface--these days. Mostly, it was that odd feeling of remembering a time when every waking moment of my life was devoted to thinking about him, and what utter strangers we would be to each other now.

Or maybe not. So much of how I eventually came to look at life and love and relationships came out of what the two of us had together. Whether or not we ever speak to each other again, a big part of the person I am today is him. I wonder if he thinks about it the same way...or if he ever even thinks about it at all.

Gwen Cooper is the author of Diary of a South Beach Party Girl, recently published by Simon & Schuster. To read all of Gwen Cooper's posts in "The Dating Life," click here.