A few minutes after I woke up, I got a message from him on Facebook. He wrote that he was sure he wasn’t the first guy to hit on me, but he hoped he was at least the first one today. Now, I’m terrible at remembering faces, but his was hard to forget. He had a striking look. I recognized him immediately. Damn. It was the new boyfriend of my new friend.
Yes. One of the side effects of being divorced is feeling like you're 16 again, but not in the fun way. It’s not about the crushes, butterflies or wondering if kissing a guy means you might somehow get pregnant. It’s more about the dilemmas—the ones you thought you’d left behind along with your locked diary and landline. Like finding out your friend’s boyfriend is hitting on you and trying to figure out if, and how, you should tell her.
I met my “new friend” a few months ago through work. We hit it off right away. Beyond the fact that we’re about the same age and share the same “divorced” status, we just had great chemistry. At our last meeting, she told me about a guy she’d met on an app. “We’re not a good match in so many ways,” she said. “But I’m really into him.” Then she showed me his photos. Sometimes a tattoo of ducks on someone’s arm is all it takes to turn a “maybe” into a “damn.”
So yes, I knew it was him. What I didn’t know was what to do next. My first instinct was to tell her. She had to know. If he was hitting on me, he was probably hitting on others too. What kind of friend would I be if I stayed quiet? On the other hand, I’ve never been drawn to the role of “messenger,” especially not the kind that comes with extra risk. I didn’t want to be the one who hurt her, who delivered the bad news—and ended up being seen not just as the messenger, but the problem. The reason it all fell apart. The one she’d have to cut off. Even though “the one” hadn’t done anything wrong.
In the end, I decided she deserved to know, even if it cost us the friendship. I tried to do it gently. I asked how things were going with him. She surprised me: she told me they’d just broken up the night before. I said “great,” and sent her the message he’d written. She was horrified—and not just by the timing. It wasn’t only that he hadn’t waited even a minimum amount of time for the body to go cold. Turned out he hadn’t messaged me by chance. A few days earlier, she’d told him about me. She’d even shown him my Facebook profile. He knew exactly who I was—and reached out anyway.
We both tried to understand what his endgame had been. Did he not think I’d know who he was? Did he just hope I’d go along with it? For him, it was a simple equation: divorced equals single, and single equals available. And yes, eventually, things would come to light and our friendship would fall apart. But oh well. C’est la vie. Or maybe this wasn’t a bug at all—but the feature. Maybe that had been the whole point: to hurt her through me. A plan where she ends up losing twice, and I realize too late that I was the one holding the clippers.
Either way, his plan ended with a Messenger message that would never get a reply. What he didn’t count on is that good friends at our age share everything—stories, photos, and when needed, the uncomfortable truths. Sure, we’re dating again. We get excited. Sometimes we fall apart. But no—we’re not 16 anymore.