Effortlessly Cool (Patreon)

Have you ever had a childhood best friend who ended up so much cooler than you? Chances are you have - at least if you’re a loser like me. At least I’m not the ‘still living in my mom’s basement’ kind of loser, but I’m not exactly doing much better either. Jared though... we were inseparable back when we were twelve and only fell out of contact when we left junior school as his family moved. We kept in contact via text and social media for a while but eventually the contact faded away, as they sometimes do.

The reason I’m telling you this is because Jared is that “glow up” friend for me, only I’m getting suspicious about the circumstance in which he became this new man. When I knew Jared he was a weedy teenager with an overbite and thin, greasy hair. I wasn’t the type of guy to judge people on their looks, as if I had been then Jared hardly would have been my first pick.

It was sheer curiosity that led me to track Jared down on social media for the first time in years one day. For a moment I thought that I'd clicked on the wrong profile because the man in his profile picture hardly looked like him at all. Perhaps if Jared had a genetically blessed cousin or something, but I simply couldn't comprehend how he had changed so much in the span of the four years since I had last bothered to check any of his social media.

The man in the picture was - and there's really no other way to describe it - effortlessly cool. His thick black hair was perfectly styled and his skin was perfectly clear and healthy. A plain blue t-shirt was stretched over powerful chest and arm muscles that were enough to make my jaw drop. Of the two of us, I had always been the one with a little more meat on my bones but never to the extent that this guy had. My brain couldn't connect the awkward gangly teenager I had known with this... well, this hunk.

Confused and intrigued by my strange discovery, I found myself delving into Jared's profile history and was stunned to see that this wasn't some mistake. There were pictures of this new genetically-enviable Jared with his parents, just as I remembered them from my childhood. He seemed to have a thriving social life and a job that paid well enough to afford him with such luxuries as a sweet sports car and regular vacations. The more I looked at his pictures, the more jealous I could feel myself getting.

Finally, about two years back, I began discovering photos of a Jared who looked far more familiar. He still resembled that thin teenager I had once known, only he was taller and his hair was better maintained. Still, he was hardly anything to drool over. The boyfriend who was in pictures with him though... now that  was a man. Big muscles, square jaw, tribal tattoos - he was the real deal and I was honestly surprised a guy like him would ever go for somebody like Jared.

It took several hours of digging but I was able to pinpoint the exact moment that Jared's life changed, and it all revolved around his studly boyfriend dumping him. From what I can tell, said ex-boyfriend doesn't have any sort of social media which made it somewhat more difficult to truly unravel what had happened. Just a week after Jared had posted about the break-up, this new desirable Jared appeared with his strong muscles and beautiful visage.

My suspicions were on the rise but it wasn't until I returned to his more recent photos that those suspicions were confirmed. In a recent profile picture, the hunk I was slowly beginning to accept was my childhood friend had token a photo with a skinnier guy with an overbite and thin shaggy hair. Before I had simply chuckled over the slight resemble to the young boy I had known. Now though, I found myself staring at the strangely familiar facial features that looked slightly out of proportion, and the tribal tattoos on his twig of an arm that might have looked far better on somebody with some real muscle...

Somebody like Jared's once-gorgeous ex.