Had I foreseen that “clairvoyance” would never be my most admired skill, I would have stopped putting it on my c.v. years ago. Hindsight is a fine(r) thing.

Y’see, I love to get together with the martyrs in my social circle and rifle through the current status of various yokels we were schooled with (not so much by, as everyone knows teachers never change, and retain that odour and chainsaw smile even when they die). It’s always gratifying to find out that The Bitchiest Twit In The School has dieted her way into resembling an animated bag of hammers, or that Mr. Local Playboy 1998 is married with twins and a hernia. The fragrant Flann and myself had a moment not so long ago, when it was discovered that a person I’d recently had po-faced conversations with had tried to instate some order into the minefield of his past (yes, our Flann knows much about “missionary” positions). And it turned out that Flann was as gratified to learn that his blast from the past hadn’t changed a bit, as I am to learn that assorted monkeys from mine have slithered further down the evolutionary scale. Playing matching games with the characters from personal yesteryears is always a fun endeavour, but very rarely a predictable one.

Regular readers will know that I spend most of my school years in the guise of what would now be taken as a Harry Potter impersonator, too wide-eyed under the boyband hair even to be dismissed as a fledgling lesbian (fledgbian?). I’ve since grown into my face, and grown my hair to an acceptable length, and I’m quite happy with my level of boobage and ratio of legs to arse. So it surprises me when no one is quite surprised by how I turned out.

“Writing sarky bullshit for a cynical audience, eh? Ah, you were always the same. You always had that sharp, biting bitchiness to you!”

It seems those around me were well able to predict how I’d turn out, even if I wasn’t (I’d always imagined myself married to Ryan Giggs at this point).

Sifting through the knowledge dredged in from Facebook profiles, gossip and plain, old-fashioned peeping Tom-ery, I’m not surprised to note that one ex ended up permanently stoned in San Francisco, or that one of the most “alternative” girls in the school suffered lately from septic toenails. I am, on the other hand, delighted to learn that Romeo from Uni grew out his hair and a beard down to his moobs. It’s a tangled tapestry – past, future, nerd, sexpot, hippie, clown. You just never know, do you?

Recently I’ve been hoping I’ll never come across anything dark and difficult in my snooping, a fear inspired by my getting bogged down daily in national news and the hardship we inflict upon one another, possibly down to individual evils more than a compulsion to give Joe Duffy something to do. I really don’t want to read about how yer wan who sat behind me in English poisoned her husband, or that my primary school crush shot his neighbour’s dog*. It’s possible, though. It’s more than possible. There were over one hundred students in my year at secondary school, and I swapped spit rubbed shoulders with half of Cork during my two-year lie-in at University. And we Irish have more fractured personalities, dirty secrets, and barely-closeted skeletons than a first world population has any right to. I’d hate to think there’d be murderers, pet-hating gunmen, or politicians in my future, but there’s got to be one lurking in there somewhere.

A disconcerting thought. And I’m far more afraid of the dark than any biting bitch should be**.

Over to you, Wise Readership. Ever found anything slimy or scary in your nosey crab-walking through the lives of old aquaintences? Or are you so dishonest as to swear you’ve never used the internet to pick the lock of past, failed relationships? Liar. That’s why she dumped you, you know.

*Foreign readers! The shooting of your neighbour’s dog is an enduring past-time in rural Ireland, so leave Rex at home next time you immigrate.

**Probably because biting bitches tend to get shot by rampaging neighbours, though.