Not Wanting to Hurt

Has anyone noticed how it's the well-meaning interfering busy-bodies who cause the most hurt? The ones who blunder in posing as pals and spill the beans on private information you'd never otherwise have heard and which hurts more than anything that's gone before.

Late last year I had a 'meaningful' relationship which pranged badly during and after Christmas but the lady delivered the coup de grace with tact and artistry and it was left to me to pick myself up and apply salve and balm to the more gaping wounds and, in the famous advice, 'move on'.

So, six months later and I'm still watching my words and watching where I watch in case I see Her or that distinctive jalopy ... or Her and *him* (with whom She'd been from the start, blind moi) striding arm in arm down the street.

But I'm on the mend and I'm getting good at blanking out any thoughts of her that worm their way in when I'm off guard.

Off guard - Which is what I was when I let slip a tiny but crucial bit of information that allowed a certain busy-body Goody Two Shoes with whom I've been sharing food and chit-chat to put 3 and 8 together and deliver me the most devastating hurt and misery in the history of this sad affaire.

Heading her email, "I just don't want to see you get hurt ..." - 6 months after the train left the station, right? - she gives me the complete lowdown on my ex-adored's history and other bedmates, who and what she was also doing while we two were seemingly inseparable (and hats off to Her, if it's true), and generally opening up all the worst wounds, plunging in the poignard and twisting it several times, all the while with beatific 'friend' face.

None of this would ever have reached me

I didn't have to know

Now I DO know, I can't with dignity even stand in the same room as Her, with whom I entertained foolish thoughts of just maybe reaching some friendship plateau.

Nah- forget it.

But seriously, has there ever in the history of Cupid's mischievous twang been a case of hurt avoided by these idiot nosey-parkers? Far more likely that those dreadful words have heralded the *end* of any hard-fought peace of mind and the opening of the floodgates for the REAL wailing and gnashing.

Addendum: I am blessed in friends. The sainted Rwells wastes no words but simply sends me a killer link to Elvis C and the siren Emmy Lou.

Addendum-dum-dum-dummee doo wah: By Iapatides' lyre! What Pandora's Box have I opened? All along the watch tower vines, the mock is that lurve lies bleeding. Last night went into the Irish bar and the band struck up 'Love Hurts'.

Even well-meaning blabbermouth madame, whose searing retro-catalog of Her extra-mural gallivantings opened new AND old wounds, even *she* got to hear of the posting, looked it up and has sworn to douse me in Guinness at our next meeting .....

But, as Patricia pointed out, I can at last sing my song en publique. She's thinking of her fave verse:

Moping for a long-gone moll - mug's game at the best of times
When you're talking German Girl,
Cruising for a bruising with that sweet fraulein:
I'm a dent in her pillow, furrow in her brow
That train's left the station and carried my frau
Someone else dining in her lilies nau
Wiedersehen, German Girl (C -A7 - D7 -G)
Wiedersehen, German Girl.

Dramatic last chord on the C.

Wipe tear, look brave.