Okay, so you know I've been going to a dance studio that focuses on pole fitness and burlesque for the most part, right?
And I kind of work for them now as their administrator -- of the website, of the emails, of the social media, of the scheduling, I'm like a hybrid between a secretary and a webmaster. Of course I'm doing it for trade, but you know, my health and fitness has a price one way or another. I'll either pay for a gym or classes or whatever now or be paying outstanding medical bills later as my body slowly fails on me.
So.
Anyway, I was perusing the Facebook seeing how they ran things prior when I stumbled across a photo folder that was from a time they apparently featured members as the student of the month or some such. There were a lot of pin-up style photos and boudoir photos because they sponsor those kinds of sessions from time to time, and I'd seen a lot of them at the studio in the albums they keep on hand for display.
But as I'm innocently clicking through photos of strangers done up in their best Bettie Page regalia I realize that they are not all strangers.
And I don't mean the girl I went to high school with who taught there and her sister, because I knew about them already.
No, I was face-to-screen with a nudey photo of a girl I'd gone to school with since elementary school, who somehow ended up being in my college circle of "friends" (read: social drinking partners), who always struck me as squeaky clean and down-home and not someone who'd be up for such a seductive thing like boudoir photography.
But don't get me wrong, that's not the awkward part, because LORD KNOWS I've plastered naked PREGNANT photos of myself all over the interwebz done all beautifully and gorgeously by my friend Jacque (who now always takes our photos when she's in town, but you knew that) because I'm all for women loving their bodies and being however sexy they want to be however they want to be it because that's every girl's prerogative, you know?
So I wasn't bothered by the photo -- it was pretty and tasteful and once I got over my millisecond of shock it was no big deal.
Until I read the description under the photo.
Apparently, she took these photos for her boyfriend's birthday -- a boyfriend I knew fairly well, who was engaged to someone before her that I was close with, and a boyfriend she is no longer with.
I blushed, to be honest, from all the awkward.
As I understood the situation from hearsay (which I know isn't reliable, but the source from which I got it has yet to be wrong about such things and I trust her in my innermost circle of friends, so there's that) this girl got with this guy right after his engagement had been called off. She had been pining for him for some time, and she was a ready and willing rebound. He ... was pretty messed up by the breakup (they'd gotten engaged shortly after we did and had been together for at least a couple of years before that) and I don't think was truly that interested, but again, I don't actually know.
Anyway, so they dated for a while even when his work took him far away and often, but from what I gathered it was a tumultuous relationship. He just wanted to hang out, she wanted to get married. I heard that she tried moving in with him multiple times, only to be shut down every time, and somehow she wasn't getting the hint that he was not really emotionally available, or at least he didn't want to be.
The breakup was not pretty, as I heard. I don't know because I was eyeball deep in my own drama at the time, but I did hear that she had things to say about my relationship and our situation that were distasteful, mean-spirited, and downright cruel while also being uninformed and ignorant. So you know, at least I'll admit I don't really know what I'm talking about, I just know what I've been told. I'm not making judgement calls, I'm just telling a story. She could not say the same.
Anyway.
So they broke up and he's begun to date someone else but we don't really talk that much anymore so I have no idea how any of that is. I do know that a friend of mine has serious reservations about the friendliness of this girl's relationship with said friend's husband and isn't sure what to do, which breaks my heart for my friend and makes me want to give this girl THE BUSINESS about keeping your damn claws to yourself and finding someone NOT ATTACHED to leech onto.
But I digress.
So I'm sitting there suddenly privy to something that could be considered private and intimate between two people who are no longer romantically linked, with all this back story flying around in my head and being somewhere between gasping because SCANDAL and giggling because BACKFIRE (even though I know that's mean) and just, well, being embarrassed for everyone involved, including myself because I know waaaaayyyyy too much about the situation to be able to think about it on a surface level.
I moved on in my Facebook probe, but since I've been maybe a little purposely avoiding the photo albums just so I don't have to think much more about it.
So ... yeah. Tell me your awkward story so I don't feel so ... you know ... awkward.