Love Story or Missed Chance? Mark’s “One That Got Away”

I recently had a friend ask me if I had ever written about my "one that got away." I said that I had not, but I would get around to it. So here goes.

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For those who don't know, I have never been married. I did date two gals for ten-plus years and was once quite smitten by an awesome gal who made her living by driving a Wienermobile around the Western part of the United States.

For starters, we have to divine what would make her the one that got away. Was she the prettiest woman you ever saw? Did she appeal to you because she was kind? Were you marrying for money? Or did she just "check all of the boxes"?

My OTGA was a combination of several of those qualities. The problem is that I was only 23, and marriage has never been high on my list of bucket items. Both of us at the time had taken jobs in different towns and decided to do the most grown-up thing that I'd ever done up to that time, and that was not to try to continue the relationship long distance.

She ended up marrying and having a couple of kids but we have remained great friends after all of these years. We have often laughed about what a disaster it would have been to get married at that point. Even though I was making nearly $9,000.00 per year, I was driving a car that I owed about 5 grand more on than it was worth.

So we both feel like we made the right call.

Did you have one that got away?