Scoff if you like, but I’m not ashamed of “The Girl from Ipanema.” Though it’s drippy and cliched, I own up to it now. And anyway, Answers.com says it’s the Number 2 most-recorded song in history, second only to the Beatles’ “Yesterday.”

It was Our Song. I loved its sensual beat, its soft crooning vocals, its poignant lament of unrequited, unattainable love. So maybe, somewhere deep in my psyche, I knew. We met in the sixties when we were both fifteen. It was instant chemistry. Kismet. A sense that we already knew each other. When describing our relationship we used to say click. It was just that simple.

He was a teenage dream. Tall, dark, and handsome. Sexy. Self-confident. A heady mix. I wasn’t quite in his league at the beginning. I was an inexperienced Jewish wannabe hippie, just showing promise of the woman he’d help me become. He was an honor student, a soccer star, an accomplished musician. He could play anything, passionately. Piano. Guitar. Drums. Me. And of course, he was neurotic as hell. What more could a blossoming baby boomer want? He was my first love, and we told each other everything. Or so I thought. No games. No holds barred. We were welcomed into each other’s families, deemed a good catch by both sides. We’d be together forever. Or so I thought.

We were together, on and off, until we were twenty-five. Through high school. College. And beyond. We broke-up-to-make-up many times. I cried over Our Song during the break-ups and reveled in it during the make-ups. Our college years moved us apart, but only geographically. (Or so I thought.) I was at Penn, he at a New England university. One weekend I drove up to surprise him. I used my key to his dorm suite, heard Our Song playing, the shower running. I dropped my bags, grabbed a towel, and stepped in to join him… and came face to face with a wet male stranger. Hard to tell which of us was more surprised. Oh no, I thought, I’m in the wrong room! No, it was the right room, just the wrong guy. A dorm friend whose shower was broken, he later explained. I should have seen it. But it was the sixties. Who knew?

He went to France for a year. Had an affair there. Told me all about her. Or so I thought. But it was the sixties. Free love! We made up.

After college he moved to New York and I moved to Harrisburg. We had started to drift apart, but our bond was unbreakable. We had history. We had memories. We had each other. No matter what. Or so I thought. One weekend I went to New York to surprise him. Yeah, I know, but I was older and wiser. Or so I thought. I wasn’t about to jump into another shower. But deja vu was about to kick me in the teeth. Once again I used my key. Yet again I heard Our Song playing. I tiptoed to the bedroom. Slowly opened the door. Anticipation oozing from every pore.

And found them in bed together. The girl from France? No. A new city girl? No. An old flame? Yes. One I hadn’t known about. Or hadn’t let myself know. It was …wait for it… the guy from the dorm shower.

It may seem like no big deal, here in 2006. But in the seventies, up close and personal, it was a buzz kill of the highest order. And it got worse when they asked me to join them. Needless to say, that day resulted in our final, permanent break-up. For years afterward, every time the song came on the radio my teeth gritted. My head hurt. And all I could hear was “The Boy From Ipanema.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the final lyrics of the song haunted me: “Tall and tan and young and lovely / The girl from Ipanema goes walking / And when she passes I smile, but she doesn’t see / She just doesn’t see / No, she doesn’t see.”