Widower Realizes He's Falling In Love With His Son's Friend’s Dad
Sometimes you just have to take a shot in the dark.
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A | Shutterstock They often say love finds you when you stop looking for it. In the case of one man online, that old maxim ended up being true in a way that nobody, himself included, saw coming. It surprised him so much he couldn't help but take a shot in the dark, and it ended up changing everything.
The widower realized he was falling for his son's friend's dad.
Now admittedly at first glance this sounds like a plot straight out of the kind of movie you'd, uh, have to verify your age before watching, if you know what I mean. But get your head out of the gutter because it's actually a very wholesome little story!
The man wrote in a Reddit post back in 2021 that he was recently widowered, and his 28-year-old son's best friend's dad was recently divorced. Since they both found themselves alone for the first time and had lots in common, the kids decided their dads might like to be friends. It ended up being a solid instinct.
"After my wife passed, I really haven't gotten out much, he wrote, "so having a true friend again means a lot to me."
He couldn't help but notice that their friendly outings always felt more like dates.
Once their friendship kicked off, the widower couldn't help but recognize the dynamics as ones he'd never really experienced with a man before. "[It] usually ends up feeling like a date," he wrote.
When they'd watch movies, for example, they'd end up sitting weirdly close to each other, and they kept on having "these moments of tension where we just look at each other and I feel the same things I've always felt for women."
However, they both identified as straight — though the widower admitted he'd had thoughts about other men in his younger days. "But I loved my wife so I always assumed it was just hormones," he said.
Even their sons seemed to pick up on what was going on. "My son has jokingly called him my boyfriend and it felt so good even if he didn't mean it," he wrote. The whole thing has left him deeply confused, and feeling a bit guilty, worried that he might be crossing some boundaries.
People urged him to talk to his friend about it — and the conversation ended up changing everything.
Reddit commenters really went above and beyond to help this man who, in his mid-50s, comes from a time when everyone had to fit into one specific box — gay or straight. That is, of course, not how it works, and we've culturally come around to that idea to a larger extent than ever before in recent years.
So after explaining to him that he might just be bisexual — and that it doesn't negate the love he had for his wife — they urged him to sit his friend down and talk to him about it. "Sometimes we just have to shoot our shot," one person wrote. "Just make it really clear you don’t want to lose the friendship and you really value him and his feelings."
He ended up doing just that. On their next outing, he "made every effort to treat it like a date." It got awkward, "but in a good way," and finally things reached a point where the conversation happened organically.
"He asked me if I had just taken him out on a date and I said that if he wanted it to be a date then it absolutely could have been," which is… well, adorable, but not as adorable as the other man's response. "He told me he definitely wanted it to be a date." So they decided to give it a go.
It just goes to show that sometimes even when you have everything to lose, you also have everything to gain, and it's worth the risk to be open and vulnerable. Maybe even more important, as another Reddit commenter put it, "it's never too late to figure things out." Love and companionship are what we're here for, after all, regardless of circumstances. Shoot your shot. You never know where it may take you.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.