As I said, the public records exist for a reason, and my intuition served me well:

Technically I’m not yet divorced. I guess I put “divorced” on my profile because “separated” sounded to me like we’re just having fun, and that there’s a chance that we get back together. Plus I thought it would already be finalized. We’ve lived apart for a year, lived separately in the same house before that, and I filed back in january. It’s taken longer than I thought it would, mainly because of my business. But it’s behind me, there’s no drama, and the relationship is long dead. They are setting the final date now and it’s looking like November is the first opening in the courts. I hope you don’t find that misleading.

That’s not all of his email, but then asking “how recent was your divorce?” certainly wasn’t all of mine; the question was couched in context of asking about other facets of his life and perspective.

Of the options for how I thought he might respond (if at all), he did as well as I could have hoped, and I’m glad I was direct about asking. I can appreciate someone who is willing to honestly explain where they are instead of dancing around the issue. Yellow flag…not a red one. Everyone has stories — lord knows that I have mine; after all, I’m single mom to a 10-month-old!