Yup.  You read that correct.  After nearly five years of no contact, RacketballGuy suddenly reappeared last August a few days before my birthday.  The company he works for in Chicago sent him to London on an extended work assignment and he called me a few days after arriving.

I was in such shock and at first I thought it was some sort of prank but it turned out to be real.    And in that I didn’t have a boyfriend — I had just started going on dates again — I agreed to meet up for drinks, maybe dinner.  As there had been no contact, I was curious how life had gone for him these past five years.

When we met up, it was cordial and slightly without any outward display of emotion.  He was clearly testing the waters and I was being completely guarded.  Anyway, this first outing lead to another where he confessed without prompting that I had been the one who got away and he would do whatever it took to win me back.  He was finally ready for marriage and a family with ME!  I kid you not, this really happened on a boat ride down the Thames River to Greenwich.  The scene was quite picturesque and the only thing missing was an actual engagement ring.

Blindsided, I was quiet and said I would think about it.   And think I did for about two weeks after which point, I agreed to spend time with him while in London to see if it really made sense for us to get back together.  And spend time we did for 2+months. It was bliss as  he opened up to me and I did likewise.  I finally felt like I was understanding and getting to know the real RacketballGuy and I started to get hopeful for the future.

Silly me as things fell apart when he went back to Chicago.   Plans to meet up again kept being pushed back.  And even though we were speaking every day via phone and text messages, we were not planning the future which left me feeling frustrated.   There were complications on each end that needed to be worked out but that wasn’t happening.

Fearing my heart would be crushed, I reached out to a relative who turned out not to be his relative and I learnt some real truths.  Busted, he gave a convoluted explanation and asked that I give him until the end of the year to sort the situation.   So we went through a few more weeks of daily phone and text messages talking about everything but what really mattered.

Then when the New Year came, we had the talk while he was driving to pick up his Aunt to take her to the airport.   To say the situation was less than ideal is an understatement as the conversation was cut short.   But the last thing I remember him saying was that he loved me and all I could think was how cruel.

Real love shouldn’t once again lead to abandonment but that’s what happened and so I haven’t spoken to him in three months.   I was adamant that it was all or nothing — we couldn’t just be friends.  There was too much history and it just wasn’t fair to either one of us, or even future partners.

So there you have it, in summary — without a lot of the sordid details.   The reappearance and then disappearance of RacketballGuy.