Oh. Dear.

After nearly a decade of working in the British Education System I have recently noticed just how many contacts I have made in my adventures, to the point where it is now a rare occurance when I don’t run into someone when I am out and about in my personal time.

I walked into the staff room a few days ago and was greeted by a visitor – a very attractive woman who was about the same age as me. I knew that I hadn’t met her before, but as I said hello there was something oddly familiar about her face, and I asked her what her name was. When she told me, an image of her smiling face in a photograph flashed before my eyes, and it clicked where I had seen her before. A very handsome friend from university (that I still occasionally play in a string quartet with) was in a relationship with her, and had promoted her picture many times across his Facebook page when she had made it to the finals of an acting competition, with the prize being a part in an Aussie soap. I got very excited at remembering this, and this was the conversation that followed.

Me: Did you have anything to do with Neighbours?

Her: (rather shocked expression) Erm… Yes. How do you know that?

Me: You’re M’s girlfriend! I went to Uni with him and I remember your face from the competition pictures he used to put up.

Her: (awkward expression) I was his girlfriend.

Me: Ah. Ok.

I quickly changed the subject. However, as I was in the middle of this conversation, I suddenly had a further flashback. That wasn’t the only reason why I knew her.

For my 30th birthday, I invited a large group of people to a party that was taking place at an 80’s themed nightclub. While it isn’t most of my friends favourite venue, to their credit they all turned up and threw themselves into drinking, dancing and general debauchery, and I was having a brilliant time. I had been surprised at several points throughout the night by good friends that I hadn’t expected to show, and half way through the night M arrived. I was really pleased to see him, as were lots of my female friends (he really is extremely attractive, I can’t emphasise this enough). One in particular thought he was lovely, and it was obvious that the feelings were mutual.

I don’t remember that much of the later part of the evening, but I do remember that there were lots of photographs taken, most of which appeared on Facebook over the next few days. I received a phone call from my friend, who told me that M had gone back to her house and spent the night. I was quite shocked with him – I knew that he had a long term girlfriend, but my friend had no idea. It was a douchy thing to do on his part…

I panicked a little in case his girlfriend found out and caused trouble for my friend, so I went onto M’s Facebook page, and through that, clicked onto his girlfriend’s page (the woman that was sitting in my staff room the other day) and promptly cyber-stalked her to see if anything revealing had appeared. She didn’t have any privacy settings, and so it was easy to navigate around it.

To make matters worse, I didn’t just click on her page on that day, I must have checked it out on several occasions over the next week. Nothing appeared to have surfaced after a while, and so I stopped, and haven’t thought about it since. Am I a bad person for not saying something? Yes, probably, but the news wouldn’t have been welcomed, she probably wouldn’t have believed me and my friend would have received unnecessary trouble. Her relationship was none of my business, despite the guilt that I always feel in those sorts of situations. I’ve learnt from experience that it is always best to mind your own business where possible.

When I remembered this, I blushed furiously, to the point where one of the other staff commented on the colour of my face. I didn’t say anything about what I remembered and I won’t – I don’t know the circumstances of their break-up, but I’m assuming that she must have eventually found out that, while he is actually a lovely bloke as a friend, he isn’t exactly boyfriend material. Yes, the world is a very small place. Sometimes, it’s a  little too small.