We’re both in happy relationships with other people now. Is it insane to reminisce about the time we secretly, almost, maybe fell in love? 

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Dear Hera,

Many years ago, a platonic relationship with a friend came close to becoming a romantic one.

The timing was not good; I was coming out of a relationship and she was heading into one. But a short window opened up in which we could’ve chosen to change our lives completely, together. Those were wonderful weeks of intense longing, which felt like love unrequited by circumstance only.

It seemed like saying any of this out loud might break the spell, and so we walked in silence to the precipice of ‘something more’ but chose not to leap. That was the right decision. Our lives did not need extra disruption and we have since found excellent long-term relationships with other people.

Perhaps it is just because I watched Past Lives, but suddenly I cannot shake the urge to smash the spell and talk to her about all this. It’s not an exaggeration to say we literally never spoke about what was (and wasn’t) happening. I can recall maybe three coded sentences exchanged, just enough for us to understand. It’s entirely possible that her experience of those days was very different to mine; I’m curious and also wonder what our life might have been like…

Help me Hera, is it insane to ask your quasi-married friend to reminisce about the time you secretly, almost, maybe fell in love? What do I even hope to achieve here?

Sincerely, Hae Sung 

P.S: For additional context, we are still good friends today but don’t see each other very often, plus we both love our partners very much (I’m not trying to mess with that)!

Dear Hae Sung,

If nothing else, your letter is a moving tribute to the power of cinema. I too find it hard not to watch Casablanca without smoking an entire pack of cigarettes or Fitzcarraldo without dragging a boat over a mountain. Past Lives is a beautiful film. I can see how watching it might have inspired you to reach out to this friend and discuss your memories of that time, preferably in a charming downtown tapas bar with an evocative ambient soundtrack. 

Do I think it’s a good idea? Under no circumstances. 

OK. Maybe under one specific circumstance. If you are willing to risk your friendship, torpedo your relationship and risk it all for one last shot at love, you have my blessing. Some things need to be said, etiquette be damned. If you truly cannot bear the thought of living another moment in this world without giving this relationship one last shot, then break up with your girlfriend and have at it. 

However, you don’t seem as if you’re ablaze with forbidden love. You simply seem a little nostalgic and wistful, wanting to dip a toe into the still waters of the past, to gauge the temperature. 

I don’t think it’s fair to do this in a committed relationship. No matter how curious you are about how things might have been, I have a feeling that if you showed this letter to your partner and asked for their blessing, they’d be justifiably hurt. Of course, you might be one of these sophisticated and enlightened couples who have flexible relationship boundaries. Only you know your partner well enough to judge. But put yourself in your partner’s shoes. If your positions were reversed, how would you feel? Often these “hypothetical” discussions are simply flirting with a side of plausible deniability. 

For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s wrong to privately entertain these questions or to occasionally wonder what might have been. But acting on your curiosity would be a betrayal of trust. 

Even if you had your partner’s blessing, this would still be an extremely fraught proposition. What does a best-case scenario look like? There are three relationships on the line here. You and your partner. Your friend and her partner. You and your friend. Would you be willing to risk any one of these to satisfy your curiosity? Weighing the potential upsides against the myriad things which could go wrong, it hardly seems worth it.

Leaving the potential romantic fallout aside for a second, I think there’s another very compelling reason not to air this subject. Whatever it was that happened between you sounds powerfully romantic and mysterious. You say in your letter that you suspect neither of you wanted to talk about it because talking would break the spell. 

What’s changed? Why break the spell now? Some things are more beautiful, precisely because they are mysteries. Stonehenge. Cleopatra’s tomb. We must handle the past delicately, like archivists, in our white cotton gloves. Too much fresh air and sunlight and your memory might evaporate, and that would be a shame.

That doesn’t mean you’ll never get an answer to your question. Maybe in another life, when you’re both romantically unencumbered, you can revisit that time and what it meant to you.

Sometimes language can pave the way to a deeper understanding. But something precious often gets lost in translation. Don’t be so quick to solve the great riddles of your own life. Schrödinger’s cat is always alive, if you’re careful never to open the box.