Nostalgia...

Earlier in the week I was contacted online by someone I last saw 16 years ago. I didn't recognise him from the photo at first but slowly the penny began to drop. It's such a strange feeling when you get that first inkling that you might know someone; you search your mind for memories of them and you compare those with the image of them now before you.

All this reaching back to the mid 90s has generated a nostalgic sequence of thoughts; thoughts that accompanied me on my run tonight. Consequently, my run seemed to flash by in no time. The year I last saw him would have been 1996 and I would have been 33. It was the year that the Charles and Diana decided to get divorced, Yeltsin was re-elected as Russian President, the IRA bombed Manchester, Dolly the sheep was born and the Spice Girls released Wannabe.

I originally met this guy through my work at the time and then got to know him a little better socially as well. I had a huge crush on him and would get totally tongue-tied whenever we met. Seeing his photo online brought all this rushing back. I am almost blushing just thinking about it.

As I ran tonight all this was going through my mind. The main reason being that I need to respond to a message about potentially meeting up when I return from my holiday. The message needs to match his tone, not be too forward and not drag it's heels too much either. It needs to be bright but relaxed; chilled but interested. I'm swamped by a hormonal rush and strangled by my inability to utter anything approaching coherence.

Despite nearly 16 years of water under the bridge, I feel as tongue-tied now as I did then. Do you believe me when I tell you that my crush for him is long forgotten and such feelings couldn't be further from my mind? It's Oh So Quiet, released in 1996 by Björk, seems to sum things up.