You are right. Not a native speaker. Sent me a text saying:

"Had lunch with 2 former colleagues from CO. (they still work there)"

This is not patently unclear, but is awkward. Not the best way to word it.

But, he wisened up.

A new LI profile without the headshot - looks so much better than before. Fewer than 100 connections, so he must have whipped it up yesterday or so. Only two shared with me, but that is enough to say that he is what he says he is because both women who are shared connections are OK.

Unemployed since Oct from a position he had held for 2+ years. For that particular place, I could use a referral but it is not the kind of place that people would leave without having a new job lined up. So he must have messed up and I would only be harmed by being referred by him. This pretty much closes the case - I would rather be an applicant from a big pile than referred by a sleazy character.

Also, the LI profile is written awkwardly - no frank grammar errors but just awkwardness. Plus, he does not use hyphens/dashes in a conventional way and many others things that taken together paint a dubious picture, though taken separately each, can be written off as typos.

He listed an Ivy League School as his BA place, without a graduation date. I checked their alumni directory and he is not there.

Looks like I did not just avoid a negative personal connection but also avoided a dubious professional connection. Now that he has this new profile, he is a 2nd degree connection and I will not accept invites from him.

I wished him Merry Christmas via text and told him that I would need to be back right after the rehearsal because I am going to a concert down here and do not have time. If he writes something nice without suggesting a different date, I will leave it at that. If he offers to meet at another time, I would put his number into my spam folder (thank goodness for Google Voice on that one - it would intercept the texts and not forward them to my physical cell phone).

So case closed.

@Hankster, I am so impressed. To figure it out by just ONE line... amazing. I have a lot of room for growth.

And I figured sth about how LI works - no, you cannot reactivate the account because had that been possible, I would have still been his 1st degree connection but I am not. Live and learn about new technology and social networks.

Thanks everybody. Except I still want to learn how Fb works and why people deactivate-reactivate back and forth. Curious about it.