Lovers leave me out in the cold

I am feeling very isolated, very invisible and more than a little over the hill. Why? Well love seems to be in the air in the staffroom and it's not me it has bitten. Not I, Lord.

We have a new staff member this year now that Sile has succumbed finally to her golf addiction and let loose on the fairways with abandon. Her retirement has brought us Niamh. Beautiful, talented, single Niamh. To go with handsome, talented single Sean.

Now, Sean never seems to be single for too long, if my sources are correct. There's always a girl and a story. A text message over coffee to intrigue or a hurried rush off to catch a train to meet someone on a Friday evening.

And more power to him. There's no point in having twenty-something hormones if you don't succumb to them every now and then. But not when it impinges on my lunch-break.

Ours is a three-teacher establishment. And you know what three is. But I don't want to be the crowded one. I have copped on to the intense conversations, the relentless giggling, the cows' eyes. I still have one or two hormones struggling for survival in the face of imminent menopause and I remember what pre-marital, pre-everything lust was like. Great! But, God, not on my floor, in my face. The touching, though non-sexual, is the worst. The need to clasp an arm to make a point, to brush a hair from a shoulder painful.

And forget conversation - the pair are so caught up in one another that even an innocent enquiry about hurling practise garners me a look that suggests I have invited discussion on some incomprehensible philosophical theory.

So what can I do? Very little, if I am to be honest with myself. You see, its a lose-lose situation. If the romance endures, I can expect more of the same. And there are only so many high-pitched girly giggles one person can take. But the other option of a broken love affair and the tension is equally frightening.

So what to do? Pray for early co-habitation and the rapid disenchantment of dirty socks and hairs in the shower.

Or maybe an increase in the numbers on roll that would warrant the appointment of a fourth to our ranks. An ally, a confidant, a sane voice. Someone to poke fun with at the joys and folly of young love. Basically a crabbity ould cynic like myself, I suppose.