[pennsiveguy]

Her name was Liz.

We were in our early 30s. We hung out at the same coffee shop, and had shared many hours of conversation and revelry. One day out of the blue she asked me out to a movie. She was smart, educated, sexy, and preposterously fun. We had a heady and wonderful 8 months or so together. She was the first girl I had brought home to my family in many years.

She was driven to finish her MFA; I was taking on a lot of new responsibility in my family's business, and I wasn't adapting to the demand in a healthy way. We agreed that we were both too focused on our career goals, which was a ruse; it was our way of dodging the obvious deep connection we felt, which scared the fuck out of both of us.

She struck up a romantic relationship with her professor/advisor, and they married and had a daughter soon after. A few years later they relocated to Boston, where he's a distinguished tenured Ivy League professor of ethics and rhetoric and a published and widely cited author in his field. I've never lost a woman to a more accomplished man; that's my only comfort.