“She’s high maintenance” he said. I chocked back a laugh. He was talking about me. “That guy is dissing you behind your back constantly” said the Canadian. I was on a group tour – Shut up. It was Eastern Europe, not taking my pretty face there on it’s own. There was a guy on tour who’d taken to bagging me out loudly to the others. He looked painfully familiar but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. He was a bit glarey – which I mistook for starey – well you know, like I said, pretty face.

It all started to click into TopDeck Tetris place when I thought – hmm he’s being not so nice and I’ve barely spoken to him, so obviously; we’ve met before and he’s jilted for some reason. Or he’s doing the equivalent of pulling on my pig-tails when he likes me, guys are weird. A quick sweep through my Facebook friends and BAM! Found him. That’s right, that 2for1-Pina-may-aswell-be-clam-chowder cocktail bar in Fulham.

So I did what any Polish-vodka-inebriated-traveling Aussie would do. I pulled up his Facebook page on my phone, showed him and said “Thiz yeww?”. Him: “Yeah, that’s me” Sneaky little thing, he was masquerading under a different surname, lucky I’m good with faces. So cat’s out of the bag now and we have a bit of a stare off – well as best I can do with my Polski-drunk eye. Backstory: We met at a pub through some friends, he FB friend-ed me, he was a bit too FB chatty so I removed him. Fast forward eight months – he’s on my ten day Eastern Europe tour and bitching about me. Oh freaking, awesome.

Facebook: we’ve all removed someone and then run into them (haven’t we?) Thing is they’ll never say “Hey, how’s things going? Why did you remove me on Facebook?” *penetrative stare*. If I was four sails to the wind I most likely, actually, totally, would. With a laugh and an awkward stare, then laugh, then stare some more. Then re-friend request them while waiting in line for the bathroom followed by horror flashbacks at 11AM the next morning with no recollection of doing so. Because it’s fun to make people feel uncomfortable when they’ve publicly, yet silently said “I don’t want you seeing my Eggs Benedict at Café Poshsticks this morning”.

The problem with social media faux pas is we have no idea what’s a social etiquette nuh-uh. It’s all very new. We don’t have parental stories of “She un-subscribed from my timeline and that’s how I met your Mother”. There’s no three-day friend request rule. He can request on the first date and you kind of have to accept because he’s paying for your drinks. And well if he doesn’t (but you a drink) there’s nothing more satisfying than block or remove.

Clearly people don’t know how to react when they’ve been removed on the Facebooks and faced with the Polski-vodka-reality of having to see that person every day for the next ten of them, he called me high-maintenance!? Odd insult I thought. He went with any amount of personality slaying he could, knowing how competitive it is for ‘cool’ & ‘likability’ along with ‘shagability’ on these tours.

Anyway, back to me again and being high-maintenance – I’ve heard this once or twice before and I beg to differ. I’ll share dorm rooms, I’ll drink goon, I’ll have a luke warm shower and not complain… much. As long as I can get makeup on with my compact mirror and My iPod is charged I’m pretty damn happy. Just because I’ve got a Samsonite suitcase and wear red jeans doesn’t mean I’m high maintenance when it comes to travel. Cough.

So you want to hear how it ends? No we didn’t rekindle our FB friendship and by the end of the tour, no-one wanted to sit near the whiny, little, bitch. Him, not me. After ten days of Eastern European binge drinking: there’s hairs on chests, vodka-cemented friendships and high-maintenance girls that cannot wait, to get a mineral oxygen scrub facial.

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