Gwen's Life Journal

Old School Characters' Update (Gambon & Oliver)

Every once in a while I like to re-read the entries from years ago. For reference, chapters 1-11 were written from 2017-2018 (I have updated them ever since, mostly because of grammar errors) and the return chapter and all of Zach's parts were half written in 2017 and then completed in 2024.

The reason I like to go back to them is because sometimes it helps me get advice from my old self, like learning from funny things that happened to me. Other times I like to re-read them just for funsies. Even though at the time I was narrating embarrassing late teenage years stories, now at the present they seem kinda funny.

From those that I read, I laughed a lot at Gambon's and Oliver's stories, because out of all of them, those events were the oldest ones that happened to me (peak late middle/early high school years), and as I did, I realized that I never gave detailed explanations on what had happened to these two. It was mostly because nothing huge or dramatic happened, so because of this, I'll give both updates in one chapter today.

Oliver

After Oliver's encounter at Lola's party, I have never seen him again in person. He also moved away but has been more mature about revisiting Lola on his hometown trips than Gambon. However, since we are not friends I have never been involved in any of those moments. I do know that they speak briefly.

A few months ago though, I had a positive experience with him. I was with Lola and he called. We were talking about a situation that had happened with her ex and we were basically gossiping for like an hour. We also made jokes and had a really fun convo, so it was nice to have that mini reunion and be able to talk like normal people in their mid-twenties instead of teens feeling weirded out about their old crushes.

I also learned that there was a period of time when Lola and him considered being a couple, went on a date, and then they both decided it was not going to work. Not sure what happened there. But other than that, that's all I know from him.

Gambon

Gambon was the first guy who ever developed a crush on me in middle school. It was very odd because we didn't become friends straight away and when we did start talking, he quickly developed a crush on me that made me feel uncomfortable.

In high school, he moved schools and at the time we weren't as close as in middle school so I lost communication with him. However, Lola didn't. In fact, they were really close until a couple of years ago.

This was the main reason why in the chapter where I encountered Oliver after years at Lola's birthday get-together, Gambon was mentioned as not being there but not necessarily out of the picture.

Well, from that point on, until 2021, I didn't hear much about him. However, I mentioned before that there was a period of time when Lola and I worked together at the same place. Here she happened to go through that friendship break up and it was very tough for her. What happened was that Gambon became sort of possessive. He moved out of town and wanted both Oliver and Lola to pay attention to him whenever he needed... but he never wanted to take the first approach.

I'll give some examples. One time Gambon visited our hometown. A few weeks prior Lola had spoken to him about it and told him that if he had any free time they should catch up. When he did come to town he never reached out to her, so she thought maybe he was more focused on visiting family more than hanging out, and Lola took 0 offense to this.

Well, when he returned home he started ignoring Lola's messages, missed saying happy birthday to her, and ignored a few phone calls. When he finally decided to man up and give any signs of life, he was angry at her because she never reached out to him while he was visiting, and that the first move should've come from her. He also expressed how angry he was at the fact that she was hanging out with other people (despite those people being university friends and him being 2,000 miles away).

Talk about a man baby

It was also during this period of time that I learned that Gambon had also 2 negative experiences with Oliver. One involved him suggesting to sneak up on the woman's shower at a camping site...

(Thankfully Oliver said no and nothing happened btw) And the other one is that one time Gambon and his family visited Oliver and stayed at his house. They were rude and had many... controversial political views that went against Oliver's beliefs (and I don't mean lame ones... they were really really problematic).

Although that took a while, Lola ended her friendship with him. On several occasions, I offered to text him on my behalf and send him to hell, but she insisted it was better I let it go (I still disagree on that one, but I'll let it slide). After that, none of us knew anything about him. I kinda want to look for him on IG just for funsies.

As said, the updates weren't that big. Probably Gambon's was the most problematic one and Oliver's had a nice chapter ending.

Idk, it felt like a great finishing to those chapters that started this whole journaling process.

Hope you like it!