"The me of the past"

When talking about one's self in the past, is "the me of the past" grammatically correct?

I'm trying to make a sentence like this:

The me of the past who was popular with girls, I'm jealous of him.

Is there anything wrong with this sentence? Are there better ways to say this?

Solution 1:

Spoken, it is colloquially acceptable. It's not really grammatically precise, but in informal speech, you can fudge the rules a little.

If your sentence is going to be in written form, you should say something more like this:

I'm jealous of my past self, who was popular with girls.

If you want to be grammatically accurate, you will be hard-pressed to come up with a natural-sounding substitute for a construct involving theoretical separation between one's present self and one's past self.

Solution 2:

Questions:

Is there anything wrong with this sentence?

No, nothing really wrong with it

Are there better ways to say this?

Yes, I would suggest using:

My self of the past who was popular with the girls, I am jealous of him.
or
I am jealous of my past self, who was popular with the girls.

Solution 3:

"I'd love to go back and ask the 21 year old me, but he'd be too busy with the latest girlfriend to pay any attention. Sometimes I wish I was him."