I didn't think this could still happen, but I've let my first love affect me again. Not in the way that it sounds like... just... I don't know. Maybe that's what love does to you - I don't know. I'm pretty sure I haven't been in love since him.

I'd known that A would be in NYC this week - he had told me on Facebook during a message exchange a couple weeks back - but it was really only in the back of my mind. Not really something I thought about too much.

Well, this morning he called me. I didn't recognize the number so I let it go to voicemail and when I listened to it and heard his voice my throat got a little dry. He wanted to grab coffee at some point today. I thought about ignoring the call... mostly because our email exchanges, however brief, proved to be just as exasperating as our interactions had been back when we were together. (We met, fought constantly, I hated him, and apparently he was falling in love with me. I came around a bit later. Who knew it could be that easy?) And after the hell that we put each other through, I didn't really want to see him again and let him lord that sort of power over me.

But after talking to a couple wise friends, I decided that I shouldn't really let this opportunity pass. I hadn't seen him in over three years, and hadn't had a decent, non-guarded conversation with him in... much longer. So I called him back and basically threw away my afternoon by agreeing to meet him at 4:00 for coffee after back to back meetings. I mean, honestly in the grand scheme of things, scheduling interviews and training temp workers on data entry is not as important to me as the healing of broken pasts. But then again, I'm a romantic.

Anyway, the moment I saw him it was like the years of pain and hatred just melted away. I don't know what it is. He's grown up, definitely. I know I have too - but he was 18 when we were together, and now he's on the verge of 23. We got coffee and a cookie to split, sat down and talked for the quickest hour I've spent with anyone in a while.

He's changed... in the obvious ways one changes in five years. His face is older, he's more sophisticated, more aware of himself, and, well, I hate to admit, but more attractive than I remember him ever being. (Dammit! I comforted myself by remembering that the same probably applies to me...) I still recognized the qualities in him that I had always admired, and that I had fallen in love with in the first place - he's honest and raw, facetious yet earnest, and passionate to a fault. He is one who wants to experience and taste life. God, have I been lacking that in so many potential partners.

But at the same time I also saw the same little quirks that used to drive me absolutely crazy - he's a little bit of a snob and although he pretends he's joking I know that deep down inside he really believes he's superior. He teases me like he knows what I'm all about - like he still knows me, when I'm coming out of this realizing that maybe we didn't know each other as well as we thought we did. And, well, he's a bit 'fruity' (a word that has been used to describe him, not by me but by various others in the past as well as today).

Honestly though - and it's making me cringe a bit to admit this because of our history - I could very well have spent another two or three hours with him, no problem. I don't think we could ever date again - there was just too much drama the first time around - but I do think that if we had met two years down the line and he hadn't been my first relationship, it probably would have lasted longer and been more productive. Or maybe we were always just meant to be friends.

It's really strange though, thinking about it now after having digested it for the rest of the day... because to this day he remains the only boy who has ever said 'I love you' to me, and more importantly the only boy who has ever actually been in love with me (whatever capacity 18-year-old love can have). And it fizzled so quickly, while I went on to experience so much half-assed, game-playing relationship drama, and he went on to fall in love with three other women who seem so different from me, sweep them off their feet and have these all-encompassing, heartfelt relationships that I've only imagined for myself from afar.

And I'm left wondering two things: what was it about him that allowed him to overcome the obstacle that every other man has encountered when it comes to being with me - why him for me, and me for him? And also - what is it about me that is just so hard for men to wrap their minds around the idea of loving?

I'm not really wondering this with too much pain. I'm just really - intrigued? Curious? Stuck? I don't know.

The thing is that I've never met anyone quite like him. I never had until the moment I met him, and most certainly have not since. I wonder if he feels that way about me.

In some ways, despite the hours that I spent crying over him, hurting myself over him, and hating him - I feel lucky to have had him in my life, in exactly the way that I did. I'm not one to have many regrets - and he played a really important role in who I am today, both the good and the bad. I don't think it could have possibly turned out this way if he hadn't been exactly who he is... you know?