Send a friend request to a (now married) high school crush on Facebook.

Allow yourself to become flattered when he admits that he had had a crush on you (without realizing that you had had one as well).

Exchange messages, then chats, then texts.

Plan on meeting him for lunch when you are in town for a visit.

When he asks who you are trying to impress, because you are concerned about your profile photo, admit it’s him.

Agree to meet for “dinner” instead.

Allow yourself to stay delusional – thinking that you can maintain your sanity through it all, even though you are in the midst of your own personal crisis.

Don’t think about his wife.

Believe him when he tells you he misses you.

Continue hanging on even after you sense his guilt.

Believe him when he admits that the guilt he feels has nothing to do with his wife, but about his children.

Finally try to end it, after he admits that he can’t leave his marriage without giving it the ‘ole college try.

Be miserable and cry yourself to sleep.

Respond to his text the next morning when he tells you it really really sucks that it’s over.

Agree to keep trying.

Spend the next week on an emotional roller coaster, to the point that you are crying during your daily run.

Lose it when he says he’ll see you the next week, but then makes other plans instead.

Lose it even more when he seems less available.

Effin’ lose it when he posts a video on his Facebook page that includes his wife and him calling her “honey” – even though you’ve been asking him why he doesn’t call you “babe” anymore.

Write a one line note to her, to be sent anonymously.

Hope that she will read it on her own, and then just quietly notice him texting more often and question him about it.

Convince yourself that this will cause him to pull away from you, since you have discovered that you are quite incapable of walking away on your own.

Drive to mail it.

Return home without mailing it.

Go back out the next day and actually mail it.

Get (literally) sick to your stomach with regret.

Call the place you mailed it to (ok… her place of employment [double dumb ass points]) and explain that you mailed something and put the wrong thing in the envelope.

Ask that they hold it so that you can “pick it up and avoid potential embarrassment.”

Believe the nice mail room lady when she tells you that she will call you when it arrives.

Believe her enough that you give your REAL first name.

Believe her enough that when you don’t get a call back from her that day, you figure it didn’t arrive in the mail yet.

Deny sending it the next day when he calls and asks you about it.

Deny it when he asks again.

Finally admit to it when you realize he has some sort of proof.

Sit in total humiliation as he tells you that his wife had to open the letter in front of security. (apparently, that nice mail room lady thought I’d sent something illegal or harmful or something…[she was kind enough to tell his wife my name and that I had asked it to be held so that I could pick it up] <—- yes, I have a sarcastic streak)

Continue to sit in humiliation as you are told that she has been to your Facebook page, accessed his email accounts and knows everything (when I ask if she knows about “dinner”, he says “no, not yet”)

Resist the urge to vomit as you sit in shock and mumble “sorry” over and over.

Meekly explain why you sent it.

Agree when he asks you to just walk away – “don’t try to call, text, email, write. don’t send an apology”.

Check his Facebook account over and over the next day as you realize it is being deactivated (along with his cell and email accounts) – trying to hold onto some sort of connection.

Spend the next week constantly fighting back (unsuccessfully) the urge to cry and trying to figure out what he is thinking.

Then, to add some whipped cream and a cherry to this dumb-ass concoction, actually wonder if he might actually come back to you. (Yes – I have actually been wondering that.)

***********************************

More than once in recent weeks, I have found myself wondering if I am just a total freakin’ idiot. When I read over this list, I see clue after clue after clue after clue. It’s really painful to read, because I also remember how wonderful it was as well.

We had spent years wondering what the other was doing. And we had an opportunity to see where it all went, and I fucked it up in such a royal way.

But then I also wonder if I did us both a favor in the end. Because as much as this kills both of us (and his wife) right now, I know it could have, and probably would have, become an even bigger living hell.

But who knows – I’m apparently a dumb ass.