I took Joyce to meet my boyfriend once. I was in town with her when my boyfriend called to see him. So I went to see him with Joyce in tow. I introduced them and they shared few words between them. The meeting didn’t last more than thirty minutes.

A week ago, I ran out of credit so I took my boyfriend’s phone to call Joyce. I dialed Joyce’s number and a name popped up as “Maabena.” I thought I’d made a mistake so I dialed again and Maabena appeared.

“How come?” I asked him. How did you get her number?” He fumbled at first before telling me he collected her number from Facebook. How they met on Facebook, he told a story the way canaries sing at night.

I called Maabena with my boyfriend’s number and when she picked up she said, “Hey Dear.”

My own boyfriend is my best friend’s Dear? “How come?” I asked Joyce. “Why are you calling my boyfriend Dear?” She fumbled for several seconds before she said, “Oh but you of all people should know I call every guy dear. C’mon!”

“Agreed, but how did you get his number?”

Before she could start answering, my boyfriend started shouting behind me, “I said on Facebook. Does it mean you don’t believe me?”

Because she heard Facebook she also gave me the same line. According to my boyfriend, he saw her on People You May Know and he sent a friend request and started talking from there. But According to Joyce my boyfriend dm’d her and they started talking from there.

I checked Facebook, my boyfriend is not a mutual friend to me and Joyce. They are not even friends on Facebook to begin with. Their final conclusion was they unfriended each other because they didn’t want me to suspect anything.

I’ve been thinking deeply about this for a week now. This issue walks like a lizard, nods like a lizard and eats flies like a lizard but it’s not a lizard. They are trying so hard to make me believe that what they have in their hands is a lizard. Dear friends, be honest with me. Is this thing a lizard? Am I child?

—Derek

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