A Special Friend
When I was 15 years, I met a man who befriended me, that profoundly impacted my life and was my lifeline to getting through the rest of my high school years. He moved in down the road from me into a house that I used to babysit some little kids at. He was going through a divorce, had many issues of his own and had children older than I even. As it turned out, I knew his 1st ex-wife and his sons because I bowled with them for many years.
I eventually also met his 3 daughters and became their babysitter when it was his weekend for the girls and he had plans to go out at night. Eventually I also met his 2nd ex-wife and she too would include me in various family gatherings. Years later his oldest daughter who was only a couple years younger than I, was one of my bridesmaids in my first wedding.
Some of the things he did for me, was provide me a sanctuary where I could run to, when I needed to get away from it all. Whether he was home or not I had free access to come and go from his home as I needed. I was given a key and permission to use his computer, watch tv or just hang out. When he was around, we would cuddle on the couch and talk or watch tv together. He would let me pour out my heart and soul to him and he would give me advice, boost my confidence, stroke my ego whenever I was down. If I needed help on homework, he would help me to understand it. He would share his meals with me, take me to the bowling alley with him, introduced me to his girlfriends and pretty much treated me as if I too was one of his kids.
I adopted quite a few “parents” in my life, trying to find the perfect set of parents to fit the mold of how I believed a parent should be. In many ways he was much like a father role model to me but because of the confusing emotional and sexual feelings that surrounded him, he was never quite able to fill that roll.
Though on many levels our friendship was probably totally inappropriate he never took advantage of me in the ways that he could have. I certainly tried hard enough to throw myself at him – LOL – Raging Hormones, School Girl Crush, First Love, whatever you want to call it, after a 20 year absence we reconnected a few years ago and all those feelings, emotions I felt for him then are still present today. In my mind he will always remain the man I always wanted but could never have except for brief moments in time and will never have for my very own.
While flattered and humored by my attempts he never crossed those boundaries with me into the physical, but the underlying sexual tension between us was always there, we never spoke of it or did anything about it while I was still underage.
I must also admit, he is the one who turned me into the computer addict that I am, by allowing me to play on the Xerox 820 computer he kept at home, back in the days of text based games only! I ended up taking computer programming in High School and my life long love affair with computers continues on today.
I’ve often wondered why my parents never stopped me from going there. I only had to walk a few houses down the road, they many times had no idea where I was, nor was it ever really questioned. They obviously knew that I did babysitting for him and his room mates children but it didn’t explain the many hours I would spend there during the week, since both only had custody of their children on weekends. If my daughters had ever adopted an unnatural relationship with a man like this, a man 20+ years her senior, I would have been all over the situation. They would occasionally call there and ask if I was there and if so, please send me home but nothing was ever done to prevent me from going there.