I post my I’m Divorced status update on Facebook, and get a message inviting me out for a drink. It’s not who I was hoping for an invite from, but he’s not asking.

I like to think I’ve learned something from all my mistakes; surely they’re good for something, right? Here’s what I know: In the past,  I’ve missed many opportunities because I was so fixated on the ones I wanted, who didn’t care about me at all, that I didn’t even notice the ones who were actually interested enough to ask.

It’s not like this just occurred to me: I had this same thought around the time I met The Departed. I think I went overboard then, overcompensating for this past error. I didn’t like him at first but nobody else was asking and he tried very hard to impress me. I finally gave him points for that and overlooked – well, things I shouldn’t have, evidently.

So I consider this sudden surprise option carefully. I know him from my high school alumni regional group. He is, therefore, by definition, smart, at least in the academic sense of the word. You have to be to have gone to my high school: thousands of people take the admissions test every year, and only 350 make the cut. It’s the only criteria for admission: it’s a public school, you can’t buy your way in. You pass the test, or you go elsewhere. It’s like being a member of a secret society.

I also know he makes an effort to be nice.  I have run two alumni events since I moved to Seattle – both in the past year – and he’s helped me out with both of them. He found the location for the first. He chauffeured an out of town alum to the event for the second. He brought food – lots of it – and took pictures and posted them on Facebook.

These are positive things, and here’s another: he messaged me about five minutes after my Facebook announcement.