Ironically the whole thing that happened to my friend has bridged (very very early stages... not holding my breath) the gap between a guy that over the past 3 months I've been on 'no talking' terms with... mutual thing, he seriously pissed me off... which in turn led to me exploding at him.

We have it in common that we like the same bloke, so I took the leap and chatted to him about our mate and as a gesture of goodwill asked his advice on the matter of sending a tentative text to our mate just to let him know I'm thinking of him. Advised to perhaps leave it till tomorrow as he's not been in touch with anyone and is no doubt still seething.