D'you ever wonder . . . ?

. . . about things in your past, conversations or events, and what would have happened if they had gone just a little differently?

A couple of our acquaintance, roughly of my parents' generation, have an interesting story to tell. They knew each other as teenagers, though he was a few years older than she. They were friends, but the age difference and other circumstances meant that they never actually dated. While he was away at college or on his mission or something like that, she started dating someone else, who eventually proposed to her. She called her friend and told him, and then there was one of those pauses. She was wishing and hoping he would say, "Don't marry him; marry me instead." He was wishing and hoping she would say, "But I don't really love him; I'd rather be with you." But neither of them said anything, and she married the other guy and had a bunch of kids with him, and he married someone else as well. Many years down the road, both of them ended up single at the same time, and they finally married and have been very happy.

My story is less interesting, because I'm not sure there would have been any significant long-term consequences of things having gone differently. But you never know. Either at Christmas or in the spring after my freshman year in college (do you remember, MWR?), a friend threw a party for those of us who'd come back to town. Most of the people in attendance were from my high school class, but there were a few siblings and random others from different graduation years. One of the guys there was one I'd known since fifth grade, when we'd swum on the public pool swim team. He was two years older than I was, and for the two years we'd swum together I saw a lot of him in a Speedo. He was the subject in my first ever sex-y dream, in about sixth grade.

So anyway, at this party there was food and parlor games and even dancing--and, unlike in junior high and most of high school, people actually danced. This guy asked me to dance on a slow song, and force of habit from stake dances led me to assume the "closed" dance position, as opposed to the bear-hug typical for school dances. I awkwardly explained that that was how we did it at church dances, blah blah blah, and he was nice and said it was nice to try something different, but could we dance closer together? Yeah, sure. Dance dance dance, chat chat chat. As the song was ending, he asked if I wanted to go outside for a little walk, and I SAID NO! Hello!?!?! Could I possibly have missed more signals? It wasn't until much later that I realized what I had (probably) missed out on, and there was no going back, none.

Now, I think it's a fairly safe bet that I wouldn't have married this guy or even dated for long (if in fact he had been interested in a girlfriend instead of just some casual necking). But at that age and stage, a little of the right kind of attention from the right kind of guy (he was SUPER nice) might have done really good things for my self-esteem, which in turn might have helped me be less desperate and downright pathetic, etc. I still don't think I would have found someone I should marry in Utard. But who knows? With a little more self-confidence, I might have chosen an entirely different (~ more risky) career path.

How about you? Anything you wish had gone differently? Or wonder what would have happened if it had?