People Are Sharing Their "The One Who Got Away" Stories

Many of us have listened to heart-wrenching tales about "The One Who Got Away" from our friends and maybe even ex-partners.

These stories often recount missed opportunities, lingering feelings, and the enduring impact of a love that slipped through their fingers.

So, I asked the BuzzFeed Community to reveal their "The One Who Got Away" stories. Here are the responses, and prepare yourself because they are heart-wrenching:

1."On a weekend away with a youth group and other youth groups, I was sitting on a bus next to a young woman and chatting with her. We got along great. But I fancied her hot friend and tried in vain to get her to notice me. I didn't see her again until two years later at Féile (a music festival in Ireland). I was walking down the street and she called my name and we chatted for a bit. The older me felt like slapping the younger me around and calling him an idiot because the fact that we chatted naturally and she remembered me two years later showed that there might have been something there. Instead, I tried it on with her hot friend, who showed no interest."

2."I used to go regularly to a nightclub with my friends in the 1990s. I often wondered why I did because all I did was drink some more and wonder when it would be time to go home. But one night, I got talking to this woman, and we talked for ages...my mates went home, and then the club shut, and they were trying to get people out and clean up. And we were still there talking. And I didn't get her number...I sometimes wonder what could have been because the fact that we were chatting for ages implied we might have had chemistry."

3."We met when I was 14 at a football tournament, and for me, it was love at first sight. We dated for a while, then things fizzled out, and we lost contact for a few years. We’d re-kindled a friendship from a distance, and by the time I was 21/22, we were in the throes of talking and meeting up for drinks again. Before I knew it, we were madly in love and planning a future together because it just felt like it should have always been him. Around the same time, I’d made the decision to move abroad and work as my life was a bit of a shambles. We spent six months soaking up each other's company until we realized we wouldn’t see each other for a while, and it was absolutely heartbreaking, so we called it off."

4."We were together a little over a year; we were 18. He was my first love; I lost my virginity to him, and we went through a lot together. He left to work in entertainment at a holiday park where he'd been offered a job; it was his dream, and he'd worked really hard to get it. It meant he traveled all over the country to different parks and didn't want to be in a relationship while he was doing it, as he wanted me to not feel tied to a long-distance relationship. We had a lovely last evening together, but it was also heartbreaking as I knew it was the last time I'd see him. Fifteen years have passed, and I saw him once, in passing. I wish I'd made more of an effort to stay with him, do the long distance, and tell him it didn't matter; we'd make it work. But I didn't. I have three kids and have been in my current relationship for seven years, and I love him with all my heart...but the first guy was 100% the one who got away."

5."I met this guy when I was living abroad. He was a friend of a friend, so to speak. We just clicked, and we decided to meet the day after for a 'date.' The connection was unreal; it felt like we could read each other’s minds. Our first kiss was in an empty classroom in college, and it was the best first kiss I’ve ever had. However, we both got freaked out as our connection was so strong and it didn’t go any further. But we’ve always kept in touch, many years later. He even invited me to his wedding!"

6."We met in elementary school, and we talked all the time, but once we reached middle school, we just stopped talking. I always hoped that there would still be a chance for us, but we ended up in different high schools, and I never saw him again. I miss him a lot, and I think about him all the time. I always wonder what would have happened if I had just told him that I liked him in third grade."

7."I had a brief romance with the man who lived below me. It only lasted a month, but I don’t think I’ve felt such a close bond of intimacy with someone as I did with him. Being a gay man, I always found it difficult to trust others and open my heart to them, but with him, I felt so free and loved; nothing about him worried me. We had fun. So many great memories. We didn’t end on a bitter note, not at all. We were both at a crossroads in life, and we chose different paths, doing what was right for us, and I’m happy we were able to do that. He moved to Italy, and I started settling down. I don’t regret anything at all, but I always think about what could have been."

8."I loved him since we were five. I moved out of state at age seven, and naturally, we lost touch. About 12 years later, something unrelated brought me back to the state, and we reconnected. I remember so vividly the thought I had when I first saw him again: 'Oh my God, I’m going to love him forever.' This reconnection threw us into 10 years of visits and communication, regardless of other relationships we may have been in at the time. I pined for him for so long, hoping he would finally realize we were meant to be. Eventually, I came to my own senses and, in a sense, let him go. I would send a text here and there, but they often went unanswered."

"I always wished him well, though, and wondered how he was. A couple of years ago, I Googled his name, and his obituary popped up. I couldn’t believe it. I panicked, and I sobbed. I’m not sure he ever knew the depths of my love for him, and not telling him is what I regret the most. I think about him every day, and in fact, Katy Perry’s 'The One That Got Away' is my song for him. Maybe in another life because, as I predicted, I will love him forever."

—Anonymous, Age: 37

9."He was one of my best friends in high school. I’d liked him for years. Prom season was coming up and he was talking about how he didn’t know who to ask. I said, 'Oh, you should ask Julie, I know she likes you' (what was I supposed to say? ‘take me, I love you’? Honestly, maybe I should have) anyway. He asked her, and now they’re married. We stayed in touch for a second after high school, but his wife hated me, so he does now, too."

10."Went out a few times with this guy in high school. He was a year older than me. We were good friends — hindsight says we definitely could have been more. But because I’m a scared over-thinker, I was too scared to initiate anything. Note to self: stop being scared."

11."My freshman year of college I met a pair of juniors who were roommates named Leo and Oliver. I immediately found Leo much more attractive in both looks and personality, so after exchanging numbers with them both, I asked Leo out. We went on a few dates and we seemed to really hit it off. My first time sharing a bed/having a sleepover with a guy was after a date with Leo where he brought me a whole bouquet of roses. The next morning, he very nicely told me he decided he wasn't looking for a relationship at that moment and we should just stay friends. Part of this was due to him having an unrequited crush on his best friend, who was a woman, and I realized later that part of this was because he has impossible standards for any woman he dates."

12."During my freshman and sophomore years in high school, I had a crush on Zach and thought he might feel the same way about me. Unfortunately, I didn't have the confidence or experience to make a move, and neither did he. Instead, one of his friends asked me out, and when I started dating him, Zach stopped talking to me. That relationship set a bad precedent for my future ones, and I often found myself fantasizing about Zach during it. Now, I occasionally check up on him online, and between the two of us, I've been more successful and fortunate in life, though I'm sure he's where he wants to be. I'm married to a wonderful guy whom I'm grateful for every day, but there's always been a lingering 'what if' in my mind. I don't think he was 'the one,' but it would have been nice to have memories instead of fantasies."

13."I dated a guy (Bart) in high school for about six months. I was 18 he was 21. I moved him to college, and his friends encouraged him to break up with me because I wasn't 21 (old enough to drink). Life went on...22 years later, I was divorcing my husband. Bart happened to find me online during the same week. He reached out because four years previous, during his stag party, his friend asked him to make sure there wasn't 'one that got away.' Bart said there was. So, four years later, the friend asked him if he had reached out to me. He hadn't...oh, but he did eventually. We've now been together for 18 years...I was the one that got away."

14."He was my best friend growing up, and I always knew he wanted more. We never talked about it, but one day, when he got with another girl, I realized I wanted to be with him. I told him, and we spent the last two years of high school blissfully in love. I moved away to head to college, and we decided to break up. It was one of the hardest mutual decisions that we made. Needless to say, for the following two years, we kept in contact, sometimes friendly, sometimes romantic, and sometimes just a hook-up. I moved back home, and I thought we could be together."

15."I was 21 and just had my son, engaged to be married to the wrong man. He was already unhappily married to the wrong woman and on the verge of divorce when we started our affair. He confessed he had only been with two women (sexually) in his life, and when he told me he loved me, I got spooked and ran. I was only married to my first husband for three months before he started to hit me; I didn't stick around, though. My second husband passed in 2015, and I reached out to the one that got away (not knowing where he was or what had become of him) in 2019 thanks to the internet and waited, and waited, and waited until Christmas day 2023 when he finally responded to my message.

16."I fell so hard for my one that got away in seventh grade and soon realized he felt the same way for me too, but we didn't find each other until we were in our early twenties and met up after getting in touch on social media. We were together more on than off for the next fifteen years, discovering different things about each other and ourselves. Then I realized he was a completely different person than what he had made me believe in the beginning, but after being together for so long, there was always a glimmer of hope that we would be able to work things out. I then lost my job, found out I was pregnant, made a completely bonkers decision to move in with him while his brother was still living there, and slowly but surely discovered what kind of person he actually was. After that, I lost the baby due to way too much stress and fake support from yours truly."

"I know it sounds insane that I still love him, but because I did my research and read more than I would ever want to, I moved out, found a new job, and then another one since I had to take a severe pay cut to get some kind of income to help take care of my parents since he convinced all my friends and probably the entire internet, including my therapist who abandoned me, that I am the bad guy here so it has been hell to get back up on my feet emotionally and financially. I know it's my fault that I didn't leave and just stayed away earlier. Still, when you fall so hard that you refuse to see anything or anyone else, plus you are dealing with undiagnosed mental illness along with ten thousand other stresses that you were not aware of until it was too late, I hope you would be smarter than me to let love be your guide and let your brain take over sooner."

—Anonymous, Age: 39

17."I wanted to be extra nice to my mom since we don't really get along that well, so I went with her and my aunt to a grammar school theater performance. I ended up sitting close to a really handsome man who had come to the show with his guy friend. I ended up getting flirty with him because I could not open the bottled water we had with us. He reached out and offered to open it for me, so I handed it over, giggling and very thankful that the lights had been dimmed already because I had started blushing horrendously. 'Wine bottles are better to open.'

18."I've heard people say it's not real love if it's unrequited, but I wouldn't know. All I know is that I'm pretty sure I was in love with Scott in high school. He was a year younger than me, but we were in the same chemistry class and rode the same bus to and from school together. He was smart, funny, and unconventionally handsome; my crush was all-consuming. Our shared smiles and glances during the day didn't help, nor did the fact that we had our own little inside jokes from the madness we endured on our public school bus. But I was severely insecure and never believed that any boy I liked could EVER like me back. So our glances, our smiles, our laughs, they were just friendly. The way he was disappointed during my senior year when I dropped out of the physics class we shared and how he asked if I would please at least join the physics club. That was just, well, it couldn't mean anything."

What do you think of these stories? Do you have your own "The One Who Got Away" story? Let me know in the comments.

Note: Some submissions have been edited for length/clarity.