What's the Statute of Limitations on Longing?

In the past week, I have had two extremely vivid dreams about the first love of my life, the "one who got away" shortly after I turned 30. Mind you, I am now 41, so why would I possibly still be thinking about a man who walked out of my life 11 years ago? Shouldn't my brain and heart have purged him by now?

The man in question was the first man I truly loved, and I was sure he was "the one." Unfortunately, his parents had a lot of money and, therefore, a lot of pull. Eventually, they pulled him away from me. Since he was never horrible to me, it was always hard to see him in a bad light (unlike the second love of my life), and maybe that contributes to his recent appearances in my dreams. Of course, it could also be that I'm quickly approaching my one-year anniversary of celibacy. Seriously, after this long, pretty much everything looks good to me.

So what do you think? How long have you continued to think about a lost love? What did you do to purge?

After the Love...Who Bounces Back Faster?

At a small dinner party with a few friends, we started talking about relationships. One of the men at the party said he thinks that women tend to bounce right into the next relationship after the previous one ends, whereas men stay single longer, lamenting about the one who got away.

This perplexed me. In my life, I've seen my exes get into new relationships much faster than I have, especially when love was involved. If I was in love, I took a good deal of time to get over and purge that man from my heart before stepping into something new. On the other side of the coin, the men have married within 1-2 years of our partnership ending. That seems pretty fast to me.

Of course, I do tend to approach the world of dating and relationships more from a male's perspective, so maybe that's where the difference lies in my experiences. But when I look at my friends' ins and outs of dating on Facebook, most jump pretty quickly—regardless of gender. So maybe it's just a human nature thing: We don't want to be alone.

What's your experience?