This is not a love story. This is not the story of a non-date or a techno-romance. This is not a post about the perils of modern dating. This isn’t even a story about my gaggle – because the male lead was never in my gaggle.

This is the story of utter stupidity and pure selfishness. This is the story about how I fucked up everything with (probably) the greatest guy I’ve ever dated.

We met at a club in downtown Buffalo in the fall of 2006, when I was but a mere college freshman. I ended up going home with him (sober!!) and having a really great time. No pressure–just PBR and Jackass reruns on MTV. When morning broke, I rolled off the couch and saw him sleeping in the adjacent arm chair wearing a T-Shirt that said “St. Joe’s High School Class of 1999.”

I had never been more shocked by a T-Shirt in my entire life because I had a similar T-Shirt. Mine said: “Tesago Elementary School Class of 1999.”

I had my reservations, but he knew how old I was. And he was so nice. So I went with it.

I was 18. “Jim” was 25 and the most amazing person I had ever met. He was smart, funny, attractive and an excellent cook. He loved dogs and kids. Jim was also a wonderful writer and would send me email poems and call me “just because.”

Our courtship was like a mushy Ashton Kutcher Rom-Com, so much so that looking back, my aged and slightly bitter heart wants to vomit. I mean, the man bought me a first edition copy of Shakespeare’s collected sonnets (I was a Shakespeare major) and read them to me…on a blanket…in the woods…with wine…while holding my hand. If that happened now, I’d run for the hills (too intense). But as a starry-eyed 18-year-old, it was amazing (and probably the next Taylor Swift top 10 hit).

I was 100 percent infatuated with Jim, but there was a problem: I refused to be seen in public with him.

Ever since discovering the gaggle, I’ve realized that while Jim played a hugely important role in my romantic maturation, he was never in my gaggle because I wouldn’t let him be. I was embarrassed to be seen with him because he was a 25-year-old plumber who still lived with his parents.

I’d make him take me to dinner at really obscure restaurants. I wouldn’t let him meet me and my friends if we were out. I wouldn’t let him come to my apartment, so we would hang out at his house…with his parents…who were adorable. I was falling in love with him, but no one knew that he existed past our Jackass marathon because I didn’t think he was the guy I should be dating.

Jim was my “Undercover Ego Booster,” who I latched onto until my “real” love came along. He was an amazing placeholder.

It sounds really mean, and it was. But, it wasn’t that I was shallow (my Dad’s a plumber…psychoanalyze THAT). It’s just that he wasn’t the guy I had always pictured myself with. I was blinded by delusions of dating a tattooed hipster musician in tight jeans and a black wife beater–not a short, oil stained jeans, Buffalo Bills T-Shirt-wearing plumber.

Jim and I dated undercover for almost five months until I met “John” (who is now my ex who is still around). John was much more my “style” – he was a bass-playing rock music junkie with an affinity for Marlboro lights and Four Loko.

While things were progressing with John, I still saw Jim. Until the day Jim finally gave up on me: Valentine’s Day 2007. I had plans with him, but I decided that I wanted to go to a huge party where all my friends would be – including John. So when Jim came to pick me up, I hid in my room, turned off my phone, and waited for him to drive away.

He left me an angry voicemail calling me a bitch (which I was) and telling me to go to hell (which after that, I probably am). I never heard from Jim again.

That Valentine’s Day, John asked me to be his girlfriend. We dated for three and a half years (all of college) until he dumped me for a girl who looked like a chipmunk (not that I’m bitter). I later found out that he had been cheating on me for at least two of our three years together.

When I discovered the legacy of cheating, I thought two things: 1. “Thanks for sucker punching me in the gut.” And 2. “Jim never would have done that.” It was at that moment that I realized how wrong I was about Jim, and how terrible I was to him. I had turned into all the bitchy girls I hated in high school–ditching the nice guy for the bad boy in Ray Bans.

I called Jim to apologize. He didn’t answer.

I met Jim at 18. I was young, immature, and not done being a teenager yet. I still thought combining power hours and egg rolls was a good idea. I hadn’t even voted in an election yet. I wasn’t ready for Jim. But I learned a lot from letting him slip away.

What did I learn?

Never let your Undercover Ego Booster get away. Keep him. Introduce him to your friends, rename him, and place him safely in your gaggle until you’re ready for a relationship. Give him a shot. Don’t bail on him without warning – like I did – or you’ll miss out on something that could have been Charlotte-Harry amazing.

Just because he’s not your “type” doesn’t mean that he can’t be. Don’t write him off. If you do, some other, more forthcoming woman will snag him, and you’ll be left with a gaggle full of exes, horny dudes and hot sex prospects. You need the Undercover Ego Booster to balance out the libido with a little romance.

Let the story of my epic WTFuck-up be a cautionary tale.