We have winners! To my “Lunch with an Old Flame” Poll. Kevin and I decided that we would chose one from the “go to lunch” group, and one from “don’t go to lunch”. This was extremely hard for us to make a decision on, since we could relate in one way or another to all of the comments left.

Knowing that when you’re dealing with relationships, there is not always a right or wrong answer, everything is not black or white. What works well for one couple, would not for another. So our choices were based on (of course) what we as a couple identified with.

I want to thank each of you that gave me your perspective on this hypothetical situation! You helped stimulate much conversation on the topic! I need to remind everyone who wants credits to leave your exact username for Blog Explosion. I started distributing credits based on the name you left in my comment box, and a good deal of them didn’t work.

Kevin and I after taking turns reading and re-reading outloud the many comments were able to whittle down a list that stood out for the two of us. This alone was nearly impossible, and I admit to allowing him a major choice in the decision.

The list of answers that made our “cut” were:

DB
ABlondeBlogger
Jill
DebLA
mongakim
Jade
Jay
Bug
Faye
Lesbianca
TechWench

With honorable mention going to Bonnie! I completely related to her mood affecting her response! And the hotness factor as well! (hehehehe....)

Another honorable mention to Ma, as she always touches my heart with her thoughtful and spirit-filled responses!

Kevin worked hard at shaving down the list, but it was difficult to do with so many well thought out points. We wanted the list to be representative of a wide range of answers, although I haven’t done the count on how many of each position made our personal list.

The winner for “Don’t go to lunch with an old flame” was Bug. Her perspective of wanting to just insulate and protect their relationship struck both Kevin and myself as appropriate and logical!

Here was Bug‘s comment:

I thought long and hard about this one. I have a very paranoid personality to begin with, and am possessive to boot. I’d ask The Hotness if I could go along under the pretense of “I’d like to get to know more of your friends.” But in all honesty I’d be going just to give out the “he’s taken” vibes and keep tabs on the situation. Because there’s always the possibility that Lil’ Miss Flame has for whatever reason gone down memory lane and decided that she wants The Hotness back. I don’t roll that way

I also put y’alls question to The Hotness to get his perspective on it as well. His answer was that he would tell me to go have a good time but would, in his mind, expect me to invite him along. He said that if I did invite him to come he would prolly say no anyway. However, if I didn’t invite him along he’d think it was kind of suspicious. Which is true, I drag him everywhere with me so if I suddenly stopped it would look a little weird.

I know we both may sound like paranoid freaks with a very untrusting relationship but we just like to keep each other safe. We’ve both been hurt so many times by external people in our lives that it’s hard to not wonder what other people are up to when they come knockin on our doors. I think for us it’s more of a joint preservation of our relationship than a worry about cheating or lying. *chuckle*

We both related to her feelings on this issue.

The winner to “Go to lunch with an old flame” was Jay of Kill the Goat. Again, both Kevin and I related to her feelings on this issue and the way in which she personalized it touched our hearts. She caught us with the term “full disclosure” which to us, has become the hallmark of our relationship. Or always the goal.

Jay‘s comment:

Oh you just HAD to throw the word Hawaii in there, didn’t you

When Jason and I got married, we wrote our own vows. The first line of mine was “Jason, I love you.” I still cannot think of better words. Love is a lot of things, but to me, it isn’t limiting. It isn’t “I love you if...” or “I love you as long as...” or “I love you until...”. When I say I love him, it means I love even when he plays air guitar along to the radio in the car, and even when he forgets to bring home his lunch bag, and even if he wants to see his old flames.

Long before I decided to love him (and believe me, it took a while), I knew I could trust him. Not because of his behaviour, but because of his reaction to mine. When I got to loving him, it meant everything. It meant that I knew that he would never do anything to hurt me. It also meant that we’d have full disclosure:

I know of all his ex-flames. I also know the very good reasons why he dumped them.

Above all, I know that in his eyes, there is nothing better, nothing on this entire planet even remotely comparing to me. Nothing. No one. Just me.

So if Jason was going out to lunch with an ex, I would be happy for him. Happy that he could reconnect with someone from his past, but happier still because besides breakfast and supper, lunch is his favouritest meal of the day! I’d probably tease him about what he’s having - he loves cheesesteak for lunch but is paranoid to order it without me because he always accidentally says cheesecake. And I’d watch him get excited about the beer on draft. That boy loves a beer with lunch. To him, there is no greater extravagance in the world.

Then I’d kiss him on the cheek, tell him to drive safely, and be extremely comfortable in the fact that he’ll be coming back home to ME.

All of the comments were fantastic! This was almost impossible for me to judge. Also knowing a lot of you “personally” made it difficult. Kevin had a much better eye for just picking based on the comment. I want to thank everyone for putting time and thought into their comments. You were directly responsible for hours of conversation between the hubby and me on this topic. PLEASE give me your correct usernames for Blog Explosion so I can give you some credits.

To the two winners, I have opted for letting them choose between 100 BE credits or a $25.00 Amazon gift card. Ladies, let me know which you would prefer, and I’ll get it off to you!

The reason this topic came up to begin with, is that I had “ran into” an old flame through Classmates.com and we had exchanged a few emails on some details of the last twenty-plus years of our life. The irony being after graduating from High School in Washington State, we both ended up living in Arizona. Lunch seemed like a fun idea!

What I ended up doing, I’ll share in the next post!

Thank you to all of you who took time out to comment!