boomerangs and such

I got a “blast from the past” message yesterday via the YAP Web site from a guy I dated for a few months immediately after returning to Arkansas from college in ’99. It was pretty random (at least, for me), and the contents of said message are included below:

“Greetings Liz, I thought I would give you fair warning that I was going to try this YAP think out. I seem to keep marrying off and shipping out my friends of late, and given I work in a company of oh, 40 folks and live the burbs, the masses aren’t exactly beating there way to my door! I didn’t want you to be unpleasantly surprised (eek stalker! pepper spray, pepper spray!), so thus, I thought I would drop you a quick note. Later, ——“

(Name removed to protect the innocent, or, um, something like that …)

It feels germane to mention that, while we’ve spoken to one another at various random moments since our reasonably fiery breakup, I hadn’t heard from him in nearly three years and was somewhat surprised by this latest communique. I appreciate the heads up, and I would hardly begrudge anyone the right to meet new people via YAP, an organization that has introduced me to so many wonderful friends … but. Still. Random.

Of course, I had to call Mr. Bennett straightaway to tell him the latest about his favorite of my ex-boyfriends, but I got his voicemail … so I essentially left a message saying, “You’ll never guess who I heard from today!” He called me back a few minutes later and began the conversation not with hello, but with a loud exclamation of the nickname assigned to this boy in the heat of the moment during the aforementioned fiery breakup. I just had to laugh. Tommy knows me *so* well.

I have never subscribed to Tommy’s theory of the “boomerang boys,” but you have to admit, these random things do seem to happen to me more often than most people. Or maybe it’s just that I share them more than other people do? I dunno.