since you started the theme of 21st birthdays....here's another 'been there' story for ya.......
one girl i thought i became involved with, i met her on a summer overnight job and got to know her as friends. once summer was over, we returned ot our respective schools (hers was in my parents' town) and she said, 'come visit me sometime'.
Following that were a couple letters so I'm like, 'ok she's nice I'll visit' and i did that a few times. I had never thought of her as girlfriend material. but.......
That visiting led to major involved makeout sessions quite a few times but no actual dates yet. All I know was that I began to feel things for this girl and I knew she was feeling things for me. This played out for a full school year until she got a summer internship in a large city.
I did not follow her there but what then happened was we chased each other up and down the highway to visit and actually date. She was moralistic and I didn't believe in making an issue of sex a right away priority with this girl because i had begun to really fall hard for her. Always passionate making out and mischief and stuff, but never any 'breakthroughs'. I REALLY began to grow into liking her as more than a friend.....LOVING her actually. I admired her so much and her ability to have incredible conversation and her smiles turned me on to the point where she was all I could think about. I often spent nights thinking about her and whether she felt the same.
Well, it all had to come to a head. She told me she was coming to my town the weekend of my 21st birthday (coincidence..LOL) and was taking me out both nights. Again, she was moralistic and often worried about how good she was and so stayed with a friend that weekend, but it was right by my place and I guess I always had a thought that maybe she might stay with me this time.
She got into town and showed up and gave me a really nice card. I am like, this is gonna be the weekend.
Somehow in the middle of that weekend, I couldn't contain myself any longer and told her something to the effect that i loved her as more than a friend, thinking I would capitalize on the specialness of the weekend. After all, she was setting aside this weekend to be there with me. I had two great nights at the bars and she was wonderful but somehow in there at the end of one of the nights I got the 'I don't think of you quite that way' line. The I don't LOVE you admission.
How in the hell could I have been so wrong? All the signs were in place and everything suggested a breakthrough weekend and moment.
OH WELL.
She said she was sorry and I think was caught off guard a bit.
Needless to say things deteriorated after that. I got a letter from her a month later saying she needed me and needed to have me as a friend and that she missed me. I suppose that was because I didn't talk to her after that weekend.
I made a few attempts to visit her after that. She actually had started dating some guy who had his motorcycle apart on her living room floor. I was the only friend invited to her college graduation and met her parents and family.
I fell out of touch with her after that. I figured I tried and she didn't step up to the plate.
Oddly, she moved to my town for some post grad the following 18 months or so, but i only saw her once during that time and i think that last time was when she saw and actually felt how much she had hurt me.
Awhile after that she sends a picture from her wedding on a cruise ship. I am positive I was the only guy to get that. It's like, 'look at me! i got married and it wasn't you!'.
Meh. It only hurts now because the emotion I invested and the wway she made me feel and so many other things.
That said, I am very happy with my wife and one of the reasons was because she never played those games and was always 100% honest in the way she treated me and others.