I have, indeed! Came clean about wanting to chat more and asked her if she'd be fine with me slowly starting to drop her updates/questions/random thoughts/shitty memes and such. She more than accepted and even invited me to call her whenever I feel like it.

So I called her bluff and we spent a good couple of hours on the phone last night. I just let the conversation happen with zero expectations, had an awesome time with her again.

Knowing that I've always had a thing for her, she told me I shouldn't expect anything other than friendship from her right now because she really has some major projects in the works and is fully focused on those. I understand where she is in life right now, told her I had no expectations either way (which is true, at worst it's morsels of wishful thinking), and we're set for me to crash at hers for a week and do a me-vacation.

I'm planning on nothing more than just letting life happen and enjoying what time I get to spend with her, as I get to spend it.

Hey, thank you so very much for this!

I can assure you the only romanticisation of the whole situation happened with the encouragement of the fact that I was in no way actually expecting for the reconnect to be this easy and natural from the start. That's also what determined me to go into panicked analysis mode, I used to be a hopeless romantic stemming from codependent traits, which I've been managing away from my life for some years.

The bit about The One That Got Away is there because it conveys who she is to me easier than explaining that we spent 5 years basically living together in the same dorm with standing invitations to eachother's rooms and lives (not that she needed any invitation to barge into my life and settle there:)) ). She'd been living in the middle of my privacy since day one of University and is the only person I know with whom I wasn't ashamed to talk about anything. Other than artistic license, believe me, I'm being as rational as I possibly can right now, for the exact reasons you've stated. I really don't want to run a false flag op on her because she was one of my closest friends and I still care and respect her deeply from this perspective.

I have pondered this and have decided to go with it wherever it leads. I can, indeed, still be just friends with her and if we're still compatible enough to remain friends, then I'd rather have that than nothing at all. Plus it tracks with my "try to let life happen" homework from my therapist:)) She also brought this up herself, saying that I shouldn't expect anything because she's in a "selfish" phase, trying to get herself financially well off and stable first and foremost and doesn't have the time for relationships. And I can respect that, I've been in a similar phase of figuring out exactly what I want my life to look like from now on for a year. May be different goals, but similarly exploratory and resource intensive processes. And we're still spending hours on the phone talking about random stuff, the interactions are still just as good as I remembered them, so it feels really nice to have her in my life again.

Gonna go crash at hers for a week in September with the sole purpose of having the first me-vacation in my life, then we'll see what life brings. Plus she's always been the gregarious sort, so I'll at least get to meet some interesting people along the way.

This has officially become slapstick.

I swear on my mother's grave! I know it's hard to believe, can hardly believe it myself right this instant, but we even had the same types of jokes, we teased and prodded eachother in the exact same ways, we had the same rhythms, the same frequencies, it truly was as though nothing had changed. Don't get me wrong, I have no illusion that she is the same exact person she was back then, as neither am I. Hell, I can feel exactly how tired and weary I've become over the years and how that naiveté vanished a good bit of time ago, I imagine it's at least this for her based on what she shared. But it was as though we both got jolted back to where we left off. Again, I am a stranger on the internet, but I swear it's exactly as I'm telling it.

I agree with you that I am emotionally excitable, could even call me compromised, but my rationalisation mechanisms kicked in before I made the post and those disable any input my emotions may have other than retreating to not be a stressor for anyone else while I'm like this. Sorry, long side note, but I felt the need to clarify this.

I can understand why you'd think we've not progressed, but you're also neglecting the possibility that a person may, indeed, have their values and outlook, thus their general behaviour, essentially unchanged, even though they've grown as people. Can tell you my issues were not related to who I am, rather to what I've let others do to me.

It'll hurt exactly because whatever this is between us, after 12 years of living plenty, still feels as good as it used to. And, yes, it hurts because romantic love is selfish by its inherent nature, otherwise it'd be nothing but platonic. And I can tell you, what I'm feeling for her is anything but platonic. There's a deep sense of non-romantic love there, too, because I really would rather know she's well above all, regardless of what she'd need for that to happen, which is why I'm going through this turmoil in the first place - trying to juggle not hurting myself and not hurting her at the same time. It really isn't easy. And it's made all the harder by the first repetition, so far I have seen every single one of her aspects with which I fell in love back then made manifest for four and a half hours on my phone.

And, as for your last point, yes! I agree! She, as the thoroughly, sometimes annoyingly imperfect human being I've come to know throughout this life, is anything but a goddess. But she's still outta this world.

Oh, I am a notorious inner confabulator, yes! Known quantity, believe me. I am keeping a tight eye on that particular aspect, really don't want its repercussions again... That is exactly what snapped me back to reality with this bundle of joy in my lap, because, and I am not exaggerating an iota of this, she behaved EXACTLY as she used to back in the day. It was so comfortable and familiar, that it triggered my alarms, made me question my observations, and refocused me toward what is empirically observable - nothing.

Got my hopes up before ever interacting, they were met, to my eternal surprise, and now I'm reeling from "too good to be true" re-entry.

I do see a lot of value in your advice of taking it slow, I had no intention whatsoever of even bringing up the subject of my affection *at that level, at worst it would've been a hint that maybe that connection we used to have isn't dead on my end - I've set my limit at "I've missed you something fierce," which I genuinely did even from the friendship aspect, and that's that. I was thinking of taking her up on her offer of my crashing at hers for a few days and playing the tourist in her current country. If nothing else, I'll get a solid vacation out of it, and, at worst, a nice time with an old friend.

It'll still hurt like shit if it turns out I was right and there really is nothing more there, because, if she still is as I remember her, then she's, like... outta this world, not even kidding...

Edit with *, corrected for clarity.

Can tell you one thing, it actually might be easier if I had a gun in my face:))

Honestly, thanks for taking your time with this. If nothing else, you've helped me reaffirm to myself that I've not yet made it completely irredeemable, even if just as a friendship.

Thank you for the clarification, can still confirm my expectations were a bit before that and stopped there. Sorry for going around in circles, this is telling me I should reconsider how I express myself and, yet again, apologies for any confusion this may have caused.

To return, my expectations formed the instant I last asked myself whether or not I should reach out and went with "yes," and they were mostly centered around her potential reaction to that. I'd hoped-wished-expected that she'd respond and we'd get right back at it, which, strangely enough, is exactly what seems to have happened without me even texting a word.

My revelation and worry formed based on my realisation that I may have misconstrued her friendly and comfortable behaviour for more than what it was, in which case, I, too, am worried about coming off as creepy or weird. This separately from her (lack of) input, which I interpret as absolutely nothing at all - she does do a lot of stuff, told me about some of it, I have my own stuff to do, truly not the issue. I've done a pretty good job at healing my codependent pain points, if I do say so myself.

It was really just this, that if it's nothing more than friendship with her, I will have to recalibrate in order to not become a disruption of her life as-is. Because it would be even worse if I'd bow out at this moment, and because I do, indeed, still crave her general company and presence in my life, in whatever shape it may be. The hot potato bit is just me being aware that I may not be able to take it emotionally (has happened before with this "let's just be friends" type of situation), in which case it'd be best to drop it than for it to be a stressor for myself.

Think I may have placed the emphasis on the wrong thing in my initial composition, I mainly wanted to get the shock of realisation that the literal one who got away (or, better yet, I've let slip through my fingers in a way) may remain so off my chest.

Honestly, thank you for the reality check, but communication isn't the issue here. I apologise if I've expressed this unclearly, I honestly have no expectations in terms of that. I was just expressing my realisation that I may have miscalculated this entire thing to begin with. I don't have any sort of expectations around communication from anyone unless it's an active emergency. I mean... I've been essentially incognito for 12 years now, I'm in no position to have any.

I have no plan other than letting things roll for a while, then I'll play it by ear. It'll either be ok between us, or I'll end up having to drop an emotionally hot potato.

This was my instinct from the very beginning, to just lay everything out on the table, but I have a knot in my gut telling me that if - holy, saintly IF she still has a door through which I may one day find my way into her heart again, maybe telling her outright after 12 years of not knowing anything about one another will creep her out and wreck everything. This is precisely why I haven't mentioned a thing about this aspect, just (immensely) enjoyed her company in the moment.

Thing is, we've both had... tumultuous paths through life (thanks, childhood trauma) and I can tell she's at least as wary as I am - she made a lot of progress with herself in this time, and being in that same situation where my Geiger counter's constantly screening for radiation in the back of my mind, I really don't want to make something honest look like love bombing, y'know?

Oh, dear sibling, this was the clarity after 12 years of nut. Granted, the only image I have of her is as she was way back when, so it's a conclusion based on essentially fictitious premises, but I swear the conversation felt just like the good old days, when we used to just shoot the shit for days on end...

Y'know, that aspect confused me even then and there. I mean, sure, I was basically wearing the same attire, but I've always been more... Victorian, let's say, when it comes down to showing myself. My brain even highlighted this as a slight oddity during the call, blurted out "this is like Michael Bay's rendition of Basic Instinct." Sure wanted to take it as a sign familiarity, but now... I dunno...

This is a very good point, and I thank you for it. She's always been weird, but I always understood that weirdness as stemming from a sort of codependency on her end - she has the saviour/mothering complex with everyone near her.