In terms of people sharing certain intimate details of their life with complete strangers and not being willing to share other things I don’t believe this was, or is, the case here. I was one of the first people she chose to tell about divorcing her husband and, in fact, many people in their lives still think they are a normal married couple. And in her last email to me she flat out told me I was one of the only male friend s she had told about her situation (which I don’t believe is true but I’ll get to that)

In addition, one the reasons I have experienced so much cognitive dissonance with this situation is she made a point several times over the course of the past year of letting me know how close she had come to consider me. In fact, she had flat out told me I was one of the top people on her “list” (I believe she said top 3) of people. She had also made it pretty clear to me that getting close to people, and opening up, was something she really struggled with in relationships. The last couple of times we met for coffee she literally called me afterwards to tell me how much she appreciated me and my friendship and multiple times she said she had never had a friend like me.  She felt so comfortable with our friendship that literally a few weeks before the shift she had wanted me to do a private yoga session at the house of another mutual female friend who teaches yoga. I think the reason she reached out about this is because this mutual friend had been pushing to do a session with me a alone and I am pretty sure that my friend inserted herself because she probably wasn’t totally okay with me doing this session alone.

But also, when I look back at the way things went down with her I think she may have been giving me the information she needed to give me and telling me the things she believed I wanted to hear in order to get the attention and support she needed at that time. She mentioned in her last email that I was “one of the only male friends he told about her situation” but I don’t think this was accurate in the way she meant it in her email.

When we had initially started  getting close she had mentioned that when stuff was  initially going bad in her marriage she had almost crossed a line with another male friend but chose not to which at the time I admired and kind of understood given her situation. But in retrospect that probably should have been a “red flag”. My friend has been with her husband for well over twenty years and I don’t know many people who have been with their spouse that length of time who would have anyone still in their life where “crossing a line” would be possible. So it made me suspect that she may have had one or two male friends who had constantly been circling her that she perhaps reached out to when stuff was going bad at home.

The other “red flag”, and it may have been the same friend, is that I recall there being another male friend who was trying to meet up with her when he was in town and she mentioned that he had become annoying and was sending her emails, and even songs, expressing his feelings for her. This “friend” is a guy in his mid-forties, has known her for decades like me, is single and has a career in which he is constantly meeting hundreds of beautiful young attractive women. No disrespect to my friend but I don’t see a guy like this wasting his time on a married woman in her mid-forties with kids unless she had told him about her situation and had given him the idea that maybe there was a possibility for something more.  And one final “red flag” is that she did mention a couple of times that she has a hard time keeping friends. I was not sure what to make of this comment at the time but it was an odd comment to make especially since we had been friends for so many years – but not close friends.

So why I don’t think my friend is running around trying to leave a path of destruction and broken hearts I do think the situation she is currently in is perhaps causing her to cross, and perhaps, push boundaries in her friendships with men. She made a point of mentioning several times that she could never imagine dating, or trusting, anyone again but she is a human being and human beings have needs. I don’t necessarily see her engaging in a full on relationship with another man right now because I think she does consider herself married still but I could see her “using” male friends as a way to get some of those “emotional needs” met until her and her husband ultimately separate. And if she has done this multiple time since she has been in this situation I could see how it has ended friendships and resulted in a lot of confusion.