20 March, 2002 - 12:11 p.m.

Who says that tv doesn't resemble real life?

A couple of weeks ago, two of my longest standing friends - who also happen to be one of our longest standing couples (of just over three years) - broke up. Now this mightn't appear to be such huge news .. but if you were to add in a twist of homosexuality and a splash of close friend of the group who "lured" him down that path .. then I'd say it makes for a pretty molotovic cocktail.

Obviously the two of them feel a little awkward around each other these days - and I can't blame them. I mean, I try to think about how I would act around an ex boyfriend who's just told me that he was gay .. and had only really discovered so because of some deep seated jealousy of a mutual close friends way of life, who's now his partner (whatever that word entails).

It's a difficult concept to empathise with, because really, how many people are involved in relationships that last that long in the first place - I certainly haven't had anything that comes close to that time frame, and yet when we broke up, the pain that I felt cut kinda deep. Does that mean that if your life has been intertwined with someone elses for 3 years you're closer? will the pain be more hurtful? be deeper? last longer?

Understandably the reason for this break up is somewhat more extreme and life altering to the couple involved .. but wow. Now that I've actually had a chance to slow down and think about it, it's mindboggling.

Completely irrelevantly, d'you ever have those days at work when you just breeze through whatever tasks you have to do - no matter how hard the level of difficulty - with a smile and a chuckle and a twinkle in your eye? Where everything is peachy, and you're glad that you work there? And you end phonecalls with a chirpy "byebye!" and you get overchanged when you buy your lunch?

so not having one of those days.