What are you supposed to say when....

A couple days ago, I had a friend tell me the latest happenings from someone I had a couple dates with about ten years ago. (Geez, was it really that long ago?) She had set us up and when he 'freaked out' and stopped calling me, she was embarrassed. She vowed never to mention his name to me. Until the following summer when I won a cruise for two to Bermuda, she said she would make sure he heard about that. That was ok.

Fast forward to last week. Her husband works with his mom, so his name got mentioned. Too hard to follow? The important part is that I got to hear about Sean. We dated about two months. After he dropped off the face of the earth, apparently he was laid off from his job, found a new job, met someone there and married her three months later. Turns out she was an alcoholic, lost her job and they re-located to Florida where they were both drinking heavily. There were more jobs and more drinking, and somehow in all this, he cut off the relationship with his mom. How am I supposed to respond to that?

Part of me felt sad for him. No one wants to hear about someone who loses contact with their family or is bordering on alcoholism. He was ambitious and loved his job. It was an attractive quality about him.

Part of me went through the thought process of: if he stayed with me, could I have saved him from this? I don't drink much. I've never lost a job. Would that have influenced him differently? This same part wondered why he didn't want to marry me. I knew he had been engaged in Florida before moving to Pennsylvania. I knew that break up wasn't his choice. But he obviously wasn't that afraid of marriage. It's dawning on me now that I was a rebound date. And by 'now', I mean right this second. All this time I thought it was me. Well, it was still me, but the rebound part means it wasn't entirely me. I can share blame a little.

And then part of me thought, "it serves him right." Was it karma making him feel bad for making me feel bad? He did deserve to feel bad. First there was the part that he lied to me. Then I felt foolish for thinking things were still ok and I left him two messages because I thought he was just busy. Then I felt even more foolish when I accepted the fact I was being blown off.

So let this be a lesson. Single men- can you risk losing your job and your family and becoming an alcoholic by blowing me off? That might not really be the lesson in this, but that's what I'm sticking to right now.