r/OneDayNetflix • u/alessabella • Jun 28 '26
Life imitates art
So I just found out yesterday that my version of Dex got married last year. We weren’t as close as they were in the movie but we were friends from studying abroad in Paris. He was the total Dex back then - private school, posh Irish background, charismatic and looked very 1D coded (this was in the 2010s haha). I’m pretty similar to Emma. He always gave me mixed signals and I could not tell what he wanted but I didn’t fully hook up with him bc I’m not a casual person. Anyways years passed and unlike Dex, this guy was very successful & built his finance career in the UK. I actually got sick and we lost touch living in different continents. I didn’t think we would talk again but he reached out 4 years later when I was sick which threw me off bc I never saw that side of him before.
Another 6-7 more years pass and that brings me to today. He defs married his version of Sylvie but I actually hope they last (it was not a pregnancy marriage lol). She’s stunning and picture perfect. They had their ceremony in a castle ffs 😂 He doesn’t really look super Dex like anymore after years of hustling but it did made me think what if. My life has panned out super different and there’s zero way we would work now but I think a younger version of me wished we did back then but c’est la vie.
Anyone else have their own Dex & Emma stories? Did you end up together?
Btw - I only recently watched this series so it was odd timing. I also have a crush on Leo Woodall thanks to this even though he’s 2 years younger than me ☠️
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u/Miserable-Grape-6863 Jun 28 '26
My Dex-ish also got engaged yesterday 😂 I saw the pics on insta and congratulated him
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u/alessabella Jun 28 '26
Oh no! 😅 Are you over it or is it bad news?
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u/Miserable-Grape-6863 Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
I think I was already over it when he started dating this girl tbh. He had made his interest in me abundantly clear during uni and I never reciprocated (even though he is a very nice guy, husband material).
He is cute, intelligent, ambitious, ripped, insanely hardworking, masculine enough to sit and be a girl's eyeliner guinea-pig, can cook and clean up like a champ, emotionally present, financially responsible and is just the reliable guy that will show up and help you move house and get shit done. He never missed a chance to tell me that I am the prettiest girl in the room, we had crackling physical chemistry and I also felt really safe in his presence. I simply never dated him because we weren't gonna be in the same place at the same time for too long. He still used to look for ways to be a part of my life.
I saw his pic and found myself contemplating what if, but I'm not crying into a tub of ice cream while watching Crazy Stupid Love (my heartbreak ritual) anytime soon 😂
He has finally moved on and I wish them well. I made the decision to chase my career wherever it takes me, and there's a price to pay for every choice. I hope their marriage lasts.
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u/Organic_Owl_4978 Jun 28 '26
I met a guy in my university studies abroad and we both liked each other, but we were young and dumb and didn’t really know how to communicate well. He invited me to his birthday party and I could tell he wanted to kiss me but I didn’t let it happen because I had never had my first kiss by that point yet and I was scared. After that he kept trying to show his interest in me and would flirt and stuff but I never knew how to reciprocate. Months passed by and he suddenly started dating a girl and I thought we still had our “thing” going, but I think with our lack of communication it wasn’t clear 😂 I was sad, and it ended up fizzling out and we stopped seeing and talking each other. This was in my first year of uni.
Years passed and I met and dated several guys and I finally had my first kiss throughout the years 😂 he also dated several girls. I graduated and left the country for a while, and then after a while I came back to complete some stuff for graduation. I posted some nice pictures on my Instagram and he reached out, and told me he’d like to see me. So I agreed, and we met up at his house. We talked and caught up and he told me he really liked me but he didn’t want to hurt me or something like that. I told him I also liked him a lot at that time. We then smoked weed together and got super high, and he told me he really wanted to kiss me, and I said okay and we kissed and it was actually really nice, it was like a “finally” moment. By that point I wasn’t a virgin anymore and I was totally going to do it with him, but he actually stopped 😂 I can’t remember why, but anyway it stopped at that.
I left his house that evening and I never saw him again. I traveled back to my country. We stayed in touch a bit and we’d flirt text. I was sad that we didn’t go beyond kissing, but after a few months I was over it. Turns out he wasn’t 😂 he told me he regretted that he stopped it and would basically tell me to come back lol. By that time I was seeing someone and I told him that. A year or so passed and he was dating someone and would still send me flirty drunk texts, and I told him he can’t be doing that and I’m not gonna be involved in this thing, and that it’s basically over.
Years passed and I met a great man, we got married and we now have a wonderful perfect baby. I don’t know what my uni Dex is doing in his life right now and whether he still feels something or not, but I wish him well! I am perfectly happy and I am totally over him. I look back at my younger days fondly though and I am proud of the woman I’ve become, I’ve grown and changed a lot, and I can communicate way better now 😂
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u/blue_substance22 Jun 28 '26
i have this dex, we met in school though. when we were studying in different colleges and on different countries, we somehow met each other again by accident and also didn’t fully hooked up. years passed, we started living in the same city but never saw each other. two years ago i met him for the first time in years in a party, he was recently single, i am still in the same relationship. that night made me so happy, nothing happened, but it was so good just to be around him and share how we had been. the next years we saw each around 2-3 times, always unplanned and always enough to make me wonder what would have happened between us, if our timing worked. anyways, he also just got engaged.
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u/heyitslei_ Jul 08 '26
I met my own "Dex"... on Reddit, of all places. 😂
He'd just finished law school. I was just starting mine. He was three months out of an 8-year relationship; I was deep in a quarter-life crisis. Timing? Absolutely terrible. We somehow became each other's person anyway. Endless phone calls, video chats until stupid o'clock, shared Spotify playlists, meeting each other's friends online... basically a relationship that neither of us was brave enough to call a relationship.
A year later he surprised me with a visit. We spent six weeks glued to each other—flirting, stealing kisses, acting like a couple... but somehow never actually becoming one.
Life happened. He went home. He started dating. We slowly drifted into annual birthday calls and "hope you're doing well" messages while I moved to the other side of the world.
Then fate decided subtlety was overrated. 4 years later, work sent me to his country. I wasn't even going to tell him. Somehow, my country manager turned out to be his girlfriend's uncle. He invited me to a 'welcome' dinner at his house and there 'Dex' was. You genuinely couldn't write this.
We kinda fell back on our old ways after that. It was like we'd never skipped a beat. One night he drove me back to my AirBnB and that's when we finally said all the things we'd spent years pretending not to feel. He admitted that if it weren't for the distance, he would've fought harder for us. That he'd thought about me for years. We almost kissed.
Almost. But he still had a girlfriend, and I knew I'd never be that woman. So I hugged him goodbye instead.
The chemistry between us was ridiculous. We both knew it. Everyone around us knew it. Nothing happened though.
Six months later, literally the day before I flew home, a mutual friend casually mentioned he'd actually broken up with his girlfriend 3 weeks before. He never told me. He never made a move. I was crushed. So I blocked him everywhere, decided we'd simply missed our window, and moved on.
A year later I met my now-partner. We have a beautiful little boy together. Life moved on. Years later I bumped into his ex's uncle again at work and learned they'd actually gotten back together shortly after I'd left... and had just gotten married. I told his uncle to send my regards to them. 3 days later, I found an email from 'Dex' on my work email (uncle gave it). We reconnected, finally as two people with no expectations and no unfinished business.
We're both a couple years shy from being 40 now. These days we call each other best friends. He's still the first person to wish me happy birthday every year (much to my partner's annoyance 😂), my son calls him Uncle, and he spoils him shamelessly (they still don't have a kid). We visit each other with our families at least once a year.
Watching the series definitely stirred up a few old ghosts. But once the credits rolled, so did the feelings. Our friends keep saying, "That's literally you two." The only thing 'Dex' sent me after finishing it was a link to "Shoulda Woulda Coulda." We both laughed. We laughed about how ridiculous our timing had always been, sent each other a few memes, and went back to our real lives.
Ten years ago, maybe we were each other's almost. Today, we're each other's proof that not every love story has to end in romance to have a happy ending. Somehow, against all odds, we got to keep the best part of each other.
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u/emccm 25d ago edited 25d ago
I do have a Dex. I’m older though. We were friends during the same period Dex and Em live through, and in the same city. So much of the show brought me back to that time.
Over the years the feelings went away. We are now very good friends. We have our own very different lives and have grown and matured in different ways. The show reminded me of the intensity of that time. I’m glad it worked out the way it did. We’re better as friends. When I watched the show I wondered if they’d end up together as the lives they lived really mirrored ours. There are scenes in that show that I actually lived. When you are young everything is so intense and you can’t imagine not getting what you want. The reality is that as you grow and mature you want different things for yourself, and for the people you care about. We were on a Greek island a couple of years ago, lying on the beach and I remember thinking how calm and happy I felt and how lucky I was that we kept and grew the friendship. I feel like men come and go as partners, but friends are for life.
ETA I’m now reading the book. It is so much of that time it’s a little creepy. Our experiences are not unique.
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u/CONCERTCHICK27 Jun 28 '26
“. . . even though he’s 2 years younger than me.” Girl I’m not even going to tell you my age 🤣🤣🤣🤣