smacky and bucky

I received a call on my cell phone at 10pm last night from a number (and area code) I didn't recognize. I reluctantly answered and was surprised to discover it was a friend of mine from Peace Corps. He was calling from a hotel in South Dakota (traveling for business). He said he didn't want to tell me this in a Facebook message so he was calling. I tensed up, wondering what the heck he was talking about.

Well, he told me quite a story. He discovered a few months ago that his wife was having an "online affair" (what exactly that means I can only speculate. I certainly didn't ask for details!). It had been going on for NINE months. Whatever an "online affair" entails, it's serious enough that they're in counseling and she said she wasn't sure she still loved him. (They have two kids, by the way, ages 6 and 4).

The kicker? The reason he was calling me? The "other guy" in question was my college roommate senior year! My Peace Corps friend's wife "met" him through me via Facebook. I've seen the college roommate once since graduation (17 years ago!) yet I was the conduit to this thing. I feel a bit guilty, like I brought a sexual predator to a party without realizing it.

I "defriended" the college friend after the phone call, because damn, if I'm gonna take sides, I gotta side with the married father and not the "other guy."

None of the people in this have met each other in person, and likely never would (unless the online affair had somehow become a physical one, which seems unlikely, as she lives in South Dakota and he lives in NYC, but the heart is not rational, so of course that could have eventually happened.)

I feel like I'm on the fringe of a crazy Jerry Springer episode.