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Erica writes:


An old friend recently 'friended' me on Facebook.  Back in the day he told me that he was in love with me.  I led him on for a while but then met my current husband and let him down gently.  We kept in contact for several months after that, but as I got more involved with my husband, we lost touch.



When we first connected on Facebook, I sent him a message something like "Hey, good to see you again.  I hope your life is good."  He didn't write back.  A week later I saw lots of "Congrats, man." posts on his wall and then he changed his status to married and posted a pic from the wedding.  In other words, he friended me about a week before his wedding.


So now I'm thinking that he probably was checking in to see if I was available before he went through with the wedding.  He friended me, then saw that my status was "married" and saw pictures of my two kids and it probably broke his heart all over again.


Should I reach out to him and acknowledge what he must have been feeling before his wedding?  I feel sorry for his new wife.  No bride should have to be a runner-up.


What on earth could you possibly accomplish by doing this, aside from ruining a marriage? This may be one of the worst ideas I've ever seen in our inbox, seriously.


You may think that "no bride should have to be a runner-up", but lemme tell you something: there's no law that says he'll treat her badly, not love her, or tell her every day how he could have done so much better. He may be very much in love with her - you don't know why he friended you, after all, because he chose not to indulge in anything but a superficial online relationship with you. I know that as I approached my wedding, I thought about my exes, and even reconnected with one around the same time. It was nice to catch up with him, but it only confirmed for me that my husband is the one that I should have married, the one who's best for me. 


Your friend could have simply been indulging in something similar. It's harmless, and it's normal, and it's not all about you. I find it really quite vain of you to assume that he's still pining for you, and that his wife is only second-best. Yay for you having oodles of self-esteem, but for realz, nobody is that amazing outside of novels and movies. 


Stay out of it.