Once again, I'm cursing my big mouth and loose tongue.

It appears I've accidentally offended a friend by disclosing information about them which I mistakenly believed to be in the public domain. Apparently while they've no problem with certain people knowing certain facts, they want to be in control of the range and flow of information.

And that's only fair, because the thing I've been telling is theirs to tell, not mine, however helpful I think I'm being. My friendship with people blurs the boundaries that I should be able to see clearly.

Of course, if something's secret, it's secret, and I'll play that right down the line. It's those non-secret secrets that tax my powers of discretion.

I tend to assume that because I've been told something without being asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, I can act as a spokesman or agent for the person in question should issues related to the details come into conversation with third parties. This, as I should have learnt by now, is rarely the case.

It's something that's dogged me throughout life, both in friendships and within my family. Indeed, my own father has called me a shit-stirrer on more than one occasion for such errors of judgement.

It's not that I'm a gossip - I honestly don't think I am - but I'll acknowledge that I've always had a tendency to be too open with other people's information. I just innocently like to know what makes people tick so I can relate to them more effectively, and naively think that other people will only be interested in such things for the same reason, rather than using them to judge people by and in information-trading or as tools of manipulation. I've also tended to believe the more people know about those around them, the better they'll understand each other, and that dissemination of such information can only be A Good Thing. Alas, this appears not be the way many other people see it.

I'm getting better at keeping my mouth shut, but this seems to have slipped under the wire. I just wish I'd known sooner.

So to the secret person concerned, please accept my non-secret apologies. Nuff said.