Seven things you don't want to hear - but really need to.

 Sometimes as girls we completely block out things that are right in front of our face. Glaringly obvious truths are sometimes too hard to accept, because it’s not what we want to hear. We know that guy isn’t right for us, but we don’t actually KNOW.

No matter how many bottles of wine and boxes of tissues we get through with our friends, sometimes we simply can’t take the obvious. We convince ourselves that ‘this’ is different. It’s not our friends’ fault that they tiptoe around our feelings. We all do it. No girl ever wants to tell her friend that the guy she’s fallen head over heels for is actually playing her more than he does FIFA.

But I have a friend – one of the greatest people I’ve ever met – whose honesty frankly took me by surprise at first. She sat me down a few weeks ago and said “I’m going to tell you what you don’t want to hear”… and she did.

And you know what, I’ll be forever grateful. Her complete and utter honesty made me realise what was staring me point blank in the face.

We as girls whilst trying to make each other feel better can make another girl make a heap load of more mistakes. It’s not our fault; it’s how we’ve been brought up by Jennifer Aniston movies.

But girls, it’s time to thicken that skin. So, here are seven things you don’t want to hear – but really need to.

Breaking up with someone will never feel good. This is not a Rom-Com.

It just doesn’t. There was a girl on my Facebook newsfeed a few months ago who split up with her boyfriend and they had both put a status saying how it was a joint decision. They said they wanted the best for each other and that the relationship had just run its course. She seemed unbelievably happy… Two weeks later I saw her in a nightclub toilet sobbing on her friends shoulder about it.

That guy who lied to her... Yeah, he's lying to you too.

I used to have this theory that if it’s the right girl, any guy can be the right guy. Basically, I thought guys could be nice. It’s essentially the same as “Once and cheat, always a cheat”.

Psychologically, as human beings, the more times we do something the less guilty we feel about it. It becomes normal.

     Deleting his number doesn't delete him from your life

Come on, we’ve all done it. Deleting his number to stop you from texting him – either drunk or sober. It never works, gone are the days where you could lose a piece of paper that had his house phone number on. I once went through a stage where I deleted my exes number so often, I’d actually accidentally memorised it from it popping up all the time.

Even if he doesn’t text you, iPhones still remember contacts – so if you typed in their name, it would still come up. Why iPhone, WHY?!

     Drunk words DO NOT speak a sober mind.

Receiving a drunken call at 4am doesn't mean you are special to him. It means he's exhausted all his other options and he wants someone to care about him and give him compliments. And at that time in a morning he will tell you anything you want to hear just so you will talk to him on his long walk home from the kebab shop.

It’s a huge misconception that people tell the truth when they’re drunk. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve told DJ’s it’s my Birthday to get free champagne.

There’s a reason he seems to ‘forget’ to text you the next morning.

     If a guy wants to talk to you, he will talk to you. No exceptions.

Everyone has 2 minutes. Everyone can sneak out of work, text under the desk or call from the toilets. If I really want to speak to someone, I will speak to them. I’m sure the place where I used to Waitress thought I had bladder problems because I used to go to the loo so much.

Fair enough, if you can’t use you’re phone all day, you have no battery or you’ve fallen off a cliff edge, texting back might be a problem – but in nearly every circumstance, if he’s not talking to you – it’s because he doesn’t want too.

    You can’t be “friends” with your Ex.

Maybe I’m alone on this one because I’ve never been able to do it, but I’m sorry you can never just be “friends” with someone you felt that much for. People get back with their Exes all the time. I’m not saying that if the guy you’re seeing says “Hi” to his Ex on the street, or chats with her occasionally that they’re still passionately in love, but who are we kidding…

     If you're still Facebook stalking him, you're not over him

If there profile comes up as soon as you type in the first letter of their name – it’s time for some home truths.

The other day I looked up Chef Boy and whilst it felt good to see that he know had boobs to rival my own – I had a small internal argument with myself as too whether I had done it to see if he was okay, or because I missed him.

I realised that I obviously wasn’t over the situation… not so much the relationship, but the way it ended. (He’s a scumbag)

Another thing that you probably don’t want to hear is that you’re worth more than how he treats you. It’s not okay to feel the way he makes you feel…You are special.

Live. Laugh. Love

The difference between 'right' and 'wrong'

Sometimes in life we take all the right turns, open all the right doors and sing all the right words. Sometimes we don’t.

Sometimes in life we listen at all the right times, be in all the right places and press all the right buttons. Sometimes we don’t.

Sometimes in life we do everything right. Most of the time we don’t.

I want to talk about when we don’t do what’s right.

What’s ‘right’ can be dressed up in so many different ways. The correct, or sensible way of living or the ethical and moral way of making decisions. Whatever you consider ‘right’ to be, makes you, you.

The basic outlines of right and wrong are instilled in us at a young age and yet we learn what really is right and wrong as we grow. These can be some of the toughest lessons we ever learn.

You see if we simply lived our lives on the basis of what we know as right and wrong, well we’d have a pretty simple legal system. But, we don’t, because feelings get in the way. Whether it’s revenge, anger, happiness, pure passion or love – it get’s in the way.

Think of life as if you’re looking through a window. A window that’s just been cleaned means we can see clearly, things are in perspective, and nothing is distorted. But as we all know weathering different storms changes that. It can fog up our judgement; change the way we look at things. Sometimes for a short while, sometimes for a lifetime.

It might already be obvious, just by the fact I am writing this, that I’ve not exactly made the right decision as of late. I hope you’re not here to pass judgement, as I would never do the same to anyone who’d made a mistake.

I believe that mistakes can be dressed up as so many things. You might think that you’re the doing the ‘right’ thing. You might even know you’re not doing what is entirely ‘right’, but you think it the best thing you can do.

If you’re anything like me, you might one day decide that you’re not going to make all the ‘right’ decisions for a change. You make a snap decision based on how the ‘wrong’ things make you feel and then it’s too late; you’ve made a ‘wrong’ decision.

I always say to anyone who comes to me for advice: don’t apologise for your feelings. You have every right to feel exactly how you feel in your head and heart. You can pretend and camouflage what’s going on inside, but how you feel is how you feel – there’s no lying to yourself, not really.

If you’re struggling with what’s the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ thing to do, I’ll pose you a question: In 50 years time, would you smile about it, laugh at it or not even remember it?

Live. Laugh. Love

Don't Send Me Smiley Faces

There are times in life when there’s just no avoiding your ex. Times when whether you like it or not and fully made up or in baggy joggers, you are going to bump into them. It’s something I try to side-step like dog poo on the pavement, but sometimes its inevitable, and by inevitable I mean having an ex-boyfriend who goes to your University.

Today was one of those days. I turned up early for my lecture, looked through the glass in the door, and there he was. In the very same room I would be in in twenty minutes time was the very boy, who when I say was part of my worst break-up I've ever had, I am not exaggerating. Think Peter Andre and Katie Price… Minus the kids, plastic surgery and mansion. Okay, maybe that's exaggerating. 

So, like any together-person would, I hid in the toilets. I just couldn’t deal with the polite awkward smile and slow-motion-feel walk-by that would happen when he left the class as I waited to go in. Don’t get me wrong, I think both of us are happily able to talk to each other now and all I want is the best for him, but after spending ten minutes trying to dry my tights with a hair dryer this morning - today just wasn’t the right day.

There have been many times that I have run into exes. There just seems to be someone out there making sure that somebody who broke my heart is in the same postcode as I am. It’s really starting to affect the guys I let myself (catastrophically) flirt with. He lives around the corner, then NO. He occasionally goes shopping in Zara, then NO. He catches trains, then NO. He’s currently serving in Afghanistan and his family live in Devon, okay, maybe.

You see, Lifeguard Boy is evidence of why you should never start seeing someone who works at your gym. Its inescapable that he is going to see you red-faced and running like a lunatic trying to burn off that KFC bargain bucket you ate all to yourself. And he will see you almost falling into the pool because you were trying to make sure you didn’t make any eye contact with him. Not that these things have ever happened to me.

The first time I saw Australia Boy again (when he was no longer Australia Boy) was my birthday and I was in a seedy nightclub back home. I was queuing for the bar with my friend and all of a sudden he was just there, right next to me. I couldn’t seem to string any kind of eloquent sentence together. All I was after was Vodka and Coke not a heart-breaking trip down memory lane. Even when he’s not in the area he seems to pop up out of the blue. Yesterday I had an interview and whilst I was on the train he thought it a good idea to send me a smiley face. Just a smiley face. Who does he think he is sending me a smiley face?!

One of the good things (if there is anything good) about Chef Boy is that I haven’t seen him since he broke up with me… on Valentines Day. The only guy that has ever done the dumping, and it was on Valentines Day. So it’s probably for the best that I never see him again to be honest. He moved back to home to be with his ex-girlfriend who he obviously liked bumping into.

Yet, there is something worse than bumping into your ex, and that is bumping into your exes Mum.

Two weeks ago I was happily sale shopping in a department store when I heard a familiar voice. Did you ever have a really strict teacher when you were younger whose voice you can still hear in your head telling you that “NO, YOU CANNOT GO TO THE TOILET. YOU SHOULD HAVE GONE AT BREAKTIME”? Well, it was like that. I looked up and I saw her and all I could think to do was run. I’ve written about her before and how horrible she was to me, so seeing her was worse than all my exes just being sat around in a circle watching me have my teeth pulled out with no anaesthetic.

I ran round the corner and told my Mum that this woman who’d made me cry on several occasions had been stood less than a metre away from me. Well, my Mum has her own similar opinions on this woman so we scuttled away to the shoe section. I think the worst thing was, was that this woman still made me scared to this day. It has been four years since I was with her son and she still made me anxious and shaky.

Half an hour later and we went to the coffee shop and I sorted out the drinks as my Mum sat down. And then SHE came round the corner. It was one of the worst moments of my adult life. There was no one else waiting in the queue behind me so there she was, standing so close I could hear her breathing. I ordered and tried my best to not look directly at her and pretend I was a complete stranger. Just as I picked up my tray, she uttered the words I had been dreading: “Oh Alice, how are you?”

I can’t really remember what happened next, apart from my Mum telling me that from afar I looked like I had been very polite. You know when something really scary happens and your brain seems to just wipe out your memories of it? I sat down with my tray and saw that I’d got a nervous rash on my chest. My body was quite literally petrified of this woman.

I think if my Mum hadn’t got a bad back she’d have stormed on over there.

Well today my attempted avoidance of my ex didn’t work. There’s only so long you can stand in the toilets without looking like a creep. I left thinking they’d have probably gone by then but they hadn’t, and as I arrived outside trying to zip up my faulty bag he walked past, and I didn’t have time to muster up the nerve to look up and smile. After finally having the courage to tell the worst woman I’ve ever met that I’m actually doing quite well for myself now, I didn’t even have the audacity to put together “Hi, you alright?”. I looked like an immature little girl.

It’s something I’m trying to work on.

Live. Laugh. Love.

"Sometimes it's hard to walk in a single girl's shoes, that's why we need really special ones now and then to make the walk a little more fun" - Carrie Bradshaw

Within the Broadcast Journalism course that I do at University, we have something called a Newsday. It basically gives us the chance to run round like headless chickens in our newsroom for one day a week providing radio news bulletins on the hour every hour. It can be incredibly demanding and stressful but also rewarding and I can safely say they are the best part of my week.

I worked 3 jobs over the summer holidays and spent most of my wages on smart dresses, trousers, tops, skirts and shoes to wear for these Newsday’s. We are encouraged to perform in a way that we would in a real newsroom, so being relatively smartly dressed is something that they ask.

Now, as I bought some pretty beautiful shoes with my hard earned wages, I feel they all deserve regular outings, and totter out of my flat in a selected pair in the assorted range of 4 inch heels every week – and always live to regret it. By the end of the day, I am not thinking about my feedback, the diaries I need to log when I get home or the food that I desperately need to eat. No. I am thinking about my poor, painful feet.

You see, these heels may make me feel pretty ‘Carrie Bradshaw – here to save the world one outfit and article at a time’, but by around lunchtime, all I want to do is slip my tootsy’s into a fluffy pair of slippers or ballerina flats.

Do I ever learn?

Men may carelessly say that we should “Take them off for a bit!” but any stiletto wearing woman out there knows that putting them back on again is just more painful than before! It’s best to suffer the original pain than endure sore soles and excruciating agony to put them back on again – that’s real stamina guys!

I can see from my disfigured feet that flat’s, well; they would be the more sensible option. Comfortable, less of a tripping hazard, time saving and sturdy (if you ever need to run after an interviewee down the road), but to me they just don’t have the same appeal. You don’t ever hear someone say “Ooh look at her plain black ballerina flat shoes, aren’t they gorgeous?”

On an everyday basis, I don’t like anything more than slipping my feet into a nice sweet pair of flats, but why order a Steak and Chips and then pass on the onion rings?

If you’re going to do something, do it properly. Don’t be half-arsed about it.

I will get to my point eventually.

What started this was when I started thinking about that point after breaking up with someone when you decide whether you can give it another go, or you’re just going to be friends. Whether you should just end the car crash relationship right there or see if there’s still something to hold onto.

Making this decision is like deciding whether to wear heels or flats.

Yes, the flats will be better for you in the long run. You won’t be in pain and it also means you can do so many more things than if you were balanced on 4 inch spikes. However, they just won’t feel as good as a pair of heels; that feeling of sheer happiness, confidence and fabulousness when you slip on a pair of heels. And even though you know it is going to hurt eventually, you still wear them over and over again.

I know from experience. The rush to say “live for the moment” can lead to us getting hurt again and again just because of the short-term aspects. Wearing your heels again and again within short period of time just leads to the heels no longer being bearable at all, yet we do it to ourselves anyway.

It’s the same in life as well, we may decide to play it safe, stay comfortable and protect ourselves from getting hurt or go all out for the sense of sheer happiness without thinking of the inevitable fall from grace. Wearing the flats just isn’t as appealing – is it better to have incredible happiness for moment than never at all?

So, what do you choose?

From this day forward, I will no longer choose heels but will not settle for flats either. I choose to go barefoot.

We can sometime be so busy running around in our heels or flats to really know where we are and what we are doing. We don’t see what we are walking all over never mind feel it. We lose all sensitivity to the world under our feet by disengaging ourselves with pointless things.

Does anybody else love the feel of sand under your feet on the beach when you slip off your shoes for the first time? That’s what I’m going for here. For us all to be a little more grounded, stripped back without the unnecessary. To not worry about the things we can’t control and savour the things that we can.

For there is no better accessory to an outfit than yourself, free of straps that hold you down and pain that you believe is inevitable by letting someone see the real you. You are yourself, and there is no one else quite as brilliant as you.

And no one will ever get you in a 50% off sale.

Live. Laugh. Love

(P.S I won't actually be walking around barefoot, and neither should you... It's cold outside!)

#GetOverIt

I read something on Twitter the other day that made me re-evaluate my whole dating history. Granted, a lot of my dating history… okay ALL of my dating history has been a complete comedy show and shambles, but for once I realised that I was probably making making more of a meal of things than completely necessary. Now I consider myself to be a pretty together kind of person, albeit kind of an emotional mess for the past six months (crying at the six o'clock news and such like). But this statement genuinely shocked me – “It takes half the amount of time you dated someone to get over them”.

If this statement is indeed true, it just makes me wonder what the hell I have been playing around at for the past two years. My longest relationship for the most part is two months. That only gave me a month at the most to cry into my ice cream and watch “He’s Just Not That Into You” over and over and over again. Not that I’ve ever done that. Ever.

I must admit that I find the whole concept of 'getting over someone' slightly strange anyway. The whole term ‘getting over’ is slightly misleading. I mean you ‘get over’ a fence. You don’t need to climb over your ex-boyfriend. Or maybe you do, if they are refusing to let you leave because “WE CAN WORK THIS OUT!”. No. No we can’t Actor Boy. You cheated on me twice and your need to constantly take your shirt off in public is slightly weird.

Boys and girls react very differently to break-ups. In my experience it’s the girls that become the messes to begin with. We cry, lash out and tend to eat our feelings at the start, but then we generally tend to see sense a few weeks later when we realise how much money we will be saving to spend on ourselves. That’s not to say we don’t drink to much and end up accidentally spilling our feelings out and regretting it the next day or thinking it’s a brilliant idea to text them at 3am with something that can’t even be understood. But, Girls we do it well. We have our friends around us to remind us just how ugly he was, shopping trips to make us feel better and ice cream to numb the pain. A few months down the line it’s “Australia Boy who?”.

Whereas boys, they are complicated creatures. They tend to go all out and enjoy the newfound ‘freedom’ and display how much of a good time they are having without you being there to reassure them that “You know, your nose isn’t that weird. It probably won't stop you getting a job in advertising”. However, it seems to hit them a lot later than it does us girls. Six months down the line they seem to think it is okay to ring you on a withheld number to tell you that they miss you whilst crying down the phone, when all you want to do is finish watching TOWIE.

A year on they think its okay to drag you away from your friends to tell you that all they want is to be back with you and that girl they got with two days after you broke up was just because they were angry because it couldn’t work out between you two because he was moving to Australia. It has nothing to do with the fact she is a glamour model and absolutely stunning does it? Alright mate, pull the other one.

Girls, we accept that it is a lengthy process of belting out Adele songs, breaking down in inappropriate places and re-tweeting meaningful quotes. Guys: they just don’t know how to deal with it until they see you with someone fitter, nicer and funnier and realise we are so much happier without them.  So, who cares if it takes you three months to get over a two month relationship? It’s just proof of what is the main difference between boys and girls and that is that we finish a job properly.

So, today I sat here and worked out, by looking through old diary’s, all the dates that I should have been over past exes. Then I got to the most recent ex, and I realised that it was today. Today is the day where I should have deleted the messages, put away all the things that remind me of him, deleted all the photos, given back his things, accepted the memories for what they are – and most of all – realised he is not worthy of my time, effort or tears.

Today’s the day Twitter says that I am over him. And for once I couldn’t agree more.


Live. Laugh. Love.

When did we become Mean Girls?

We have a lot to thank social networking for; bringing us together, keeping us in touch and teaching us things about the world, other cultures and societies we may not have known about without it. Mainly though, I think the thing we need to appreciate most is the fact it has given every single one of us a platform in which to express ourselves and it has made it so much easier to let important issues be aired and shared with the world.

Of course, good and bad comes out of everything, and social media to me seems to be losing its sparkle and descending into quite a gloomy place none of us ticked a box for when we signed up for our Facebook accounts. It’s the platform element that is what has burst that once fun water balloon and it has left us all pretty annoyed and soggy. It would be easy to plainly comment on the so called “trolling” phenomenon that has swept social networking sights, but even as horrific as it is and despite it being the main reason that social networking is losing its appeal, I want to talk about the people who aren’t anonymous.

I was scrolling down my newsfeed on Facebook today when I saw a girl that I went to school with informing us all on yet another of her social opinions. I suppose I am a hypocrite when I say I find her unbelievably annoying, because if anyone else complained about someone on their newsfeed I would tell them point blank to delete them. To me if you don’t like someone’s opinion on Facebook, don’t cause a petty argument, simply remove him or her from your friends list and get on with your life. But what stopped me from deleting her when I detoxed my Facebook friends list last month, deleting two hundred people that I had never even considered friends, was actually in fact these outrageous opinions that she broadcasts to her one thousand plus friends every few hours. No exaggeration. They are frankly fascinating and I really wonder how on earth she reaches these conclusions.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, beliefs, moral codes and views. But that’s just what it is, their own. I’m all for free speech and sticking up for what you believe in, just don’t go sticking it down my throat.  Even if you do decide to air your views to a mass of public because you want their ‘likes’ as reassurance, make sure what you write isn’t completely naïve, misinformed, small minded and deluded. Maybe its because I am doing a Journalism degree that constantly informs us of this, but if you have something to say, make sure you can back it up.

Probably the reason I am finally writing this is because waking up to this particular status update made me want to hit her round the head with 80 years of feminism. We are our own worst nightmare at times, girls. It’s true, we would rule the world if we could all get on.

So maybe you want to know what she said that actually got me this riled up? What could possibly get me so angry that I would finally fire up my Word processor for the first time since finishing University for the summer? Well, it was “Bum shorts”.

For anyone in the dark about what “Bum shorts” are, they are a relatively new item of fashion that I simply don’t have the legs for. “Bum shorts” bring a new meaning to the song “I like short shorts”. Basically, they are shorts that mean a little bit of your bum is out. You know that little bit where your leg joins – the bit that you either have or you don’t. Well, to be honest, whilst I will never wear them - as the UV glow from white legs would blind people - I think they’re really cool. As my Mum says “If you’ve got it, flaunt it”. One of my friends looks really good in them and like any item of clothing, if you’ve got the confidence to wear it, I think you should go for it. It’s how YOU feel in them that is the main thing.

The girl annoyed me by saying that any girl who wore “Bum shorts” should expect to be called a “Slag”. Taking this totally out of context here, but is this being extended to everyone? Even Ann Widdecombe? Would it be justified to say that she slept around just because she decided to choose an item of clothing that showed off what great legs she could have hiding under her trouser suits? Firstly, whose business is it whoever someone decides to sleep with (cheating is a whole different ball game, don’t throw that one in there) and also, last time I checked we weren’t in the 1920s anymore. Woman now have freedoms as much as men do to dress as they like, without being outcast from society for it – or labelled because of their choice of skin exposure.

On a more serious note, neither does any woman deserve to be assumed to be “up for it” just because of what she chooses to wear. The fact that anyone could justify a sexual assault because of how a woman chose to dress, actually sickens me and should disgust anyone. Of course, if you choose to flaunt what your mamma gave you, looks from men are to be expected and we all like the appreciative double-take once in a while, don’t we girls? But that’s where it stops. Men in night clubs seem to assume that putting their hand up a girls skirt that they don’t know is perfectly acceptable, why is that? At the end of the day, it’s sexual assault.

My Mum once went on a night out, and ended up in a nightclub with a load of her friends, talking to some men that she didn’t know – she is great at banter. My Mum is married, so she wasn’t looking for any man to grow old with. However, a disgusting middle-aged man decided he needed somewhere to rest his hand. This place turned out to be my Mothers bum. Like-mother like-daughter, straight away she asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. To which he replied “You’re a bit touchy, love!”… And my babe of a Mother came out with “I think you’re the one whose a bit touchy, mate!”. I can vouch for the fact my Mum looked unbelievably stunning that night, but no matter how she looked and what she was wearing, why did that jerk think that was an okay thing to do?

I am not going off on a completely irrelevant tangent here. I need to ask you girls something; Don’t you think our off-the-cuff derogatory comments about the members of the same sex, play a little bit of a part in the fact men think this is okay? How do we expect men to treat us with respect, if we simply don’t offer that respect to the girls around us?

Why should we expect to be assumed a “slag” because of the way we dress or dance in a nightclub? Surely it’s sisterhood. We all know what its like to get ready for a night out when we don’t feel particularly good about ourselves then have comments made about your dress, as you walk past, made by girls who think they're whispering in the toilets or just because you are hilariously acting out a Nicki Minaj song in the middle of a dance floor with one of your guy best mates, to be labelled a “slut”. If we all know what it’s like, why do we keep on doing it?

What I think we all need to do is get along like we used to in middle school... I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy…. Okay, sorry, this is not Mean Girls.

I don’t think we all realise that this is not going to get any better if we don’t finally figure out that we are in this together. This assault course called life. We still live in a male dominated world. Not only that, but most of the time they are pitting us girls up against each other. Decades after equality laws were passed, women in this country are still being paid less than men for the same work. It may not be obvious discrimination – it has become so much more clever now – but it is wrong all the same, and we need to stand up for ourselves. I’m not wanting people to think I am a bitter feminist who wants everyone to burn they’re bras. I am the first to admit that I have used my cleavage a few times to get what I want in restaurants and there is nothing wrong with having a bit of “Get back in the kitchen” banter. I’m also not here to judge your life choices. You can have your husband’s dinner on the table for him when he walks through the door every night, that’s your business – that’s no longer what feminism is about. What I am talking about is being treated equally, and for it to not be expected that a derogatory comment get thrown at you just because you’re wearing “Bum shorts”.

I am also not saying that you should become a feminist, I am not here to brainwash you. Social networking has made peoples opinions and lives into a business. However a persons Facebook profile doesn’t enable us to see someone’s thoughts, feelings and demons. I believe that no one has the right to judge anyone, as you have no idea fully of what has happened to them in their life, how they feel and their thought process – only they know that. So spare yourself a wasted status that makes someone feel self-conscious, embarrassed or lowers their self-esteem. What are you doing it for anyway?

We are all trying to get to the other side of this life without too many cuts and bruises, so maybe us girls could help each other out. Who’s with me?



Live. Laugh. Love.

Break-Up Behaviour

So you’ve just broken up with that boy you thought was ‘different’. That boy that didn’t make you sick in your mouth when he asked you to go on holiday with him. That boy that you could see more than two months with. That boy that you wouldn’t laugh at for a whole hour because he fell down the steps in a shopping centre (when that happened with Actor Boy, he fell out with me for a whole day). That boy that you actually deemed good enough to give the final cream egg to out of the 6 pack.

Yeah, it really sucks doesn’t it. I’ve only had one of these kinds of break-ups but I’ve also had plenty that have hurt pretty damn bad. Whether I’ve been cheated on, been lied too, or they are simply moving to another country (twice this has happened) I have a set of things I know that I will end up doing: things that have become pretty acceptable under the heading “Break-up Behaviour”. So, I’m here to offer you a lifetime of knowledge. I'm going to shed some light on the living conditions of a broken hearted girl; what you are allowed to do, what you should do, what you really shouldn’t do but probably will, and what will get you arrested.

One of my immediate reactions to a break-up is to eat; similar to many other reactions I have in life. I know there are some people who don’t eat because they are upset but this couldn’t be more different for me. I am a firm believer in the fact that if you are upset you need to surround yourself with the things you like most in life. But being the skint student that I am, that no longer means a new dress or bag, rather a half box of left over cookies or a jar of Nutella and a spoon. You are allowed to indulge yourself in anyway you see fit because its one of those times in life you don’t have to feel guilty about it. You have been well and truly screwed over and your Mum buying you Grazia Magazine, an Easter egg and a scratch card for your broken hearted journey on the train is a perfect cure.

You are also allowed to cry. You may be one of those people who think this shows vulnerability or lack of strength, but there is only so much hitting of walls you can do before you need to find a less dangerous and arthritis inducing way of getting your emotions out. If you feel a lump in the back of your throat, yet don’t seem to be able to cry, you should definitely invest in The Notebook (everyone who has ever seen that film will be nodding right now).

Sitting around on my bum for the first few days is something I allow myself (I will let you have a week depending on if you got broken up with by post-it or not) because that entire tin of Quality Streets that you scoff during that time doesn’t matter in the next stage of the Break-up phase – getting physical. At this point you will just feel down right angry so there really is no better time than now to start exercising; particularly a punching and kicking focused exercise class. Rather than actually assaulting your ex or his new ‘full-time model’ girlfriend (according to Facebook), imagining their faces when doing roundhouse kicks and right hand hooks feels incredible. Plus we all know about the Endorphins that are released due to exercise, which means you are definitely going to feel better afterwards. However maybe not the next day when you can’t bend your legs enough to walk down the stairs.

Another thing you should do is put the stuff that reminds you of him into a box and into the back of your wardrobe. I for one have quite a large box of stuff filled with necklaces I didn’t like, photos, letters, theatre tickets, a glass from a pub, and other things that weren’t accidentally stolen. It’s incredibly therapeutic. Firstly it gets the things out of the way whilst you are angry and don’t want to think about him and secondly, when you are ready to look through the box you can remember the good things for what they then are; memories.

One more thing – and perhaps the most important that we all know we should do, which is deleting his number!

That brings me very nicely onto the section “What you shouldn’t do but probably will” and that is texting him or ringing him or thanks to Mark Zuckerburg; Facebooking him when intoxicated. If I was on the board of Dragons Den and an entrepreneur came in with his idea of creating a product that detected when you were about to send a drunk text along the lines of “L smiss yooo”, I would definitely be the first to invest. Even though in your inebriated state it may seem the most genius idea you’ve ever had to leave him a voicemail at 3am about how much you are happy for him and his new girlfriend whilst sobbing, it is not something that will be a nice surprise to see on your call history in the morning.

You may feel weak admitting it, but it’s tough getting used to them not being around in the way they used to be, and it’s weird not associating them with that feeling of butterflies in your stomach anymore.  Knowing that they remain as a few funny photos, a selection of cinema ticket stubs and pair of socks they left at your flat can be really hard and no one should underestimate how crappy it makes you feel. These things I’ve mentioned are what we all know but don't feel ready for. This is because on most occasions all we want is to go back to sitting across from him in Costa Coffee with him telling you he has never felt for anyone the way he feels about you.

Time for some tough love. Those times aren’t coming back. As much as the films we watch and literature we read make us believe they can, most of the time they never will. If someone wants to be with you, they will be and they will do whatever they can –within the law, hopefully - to make that possible. Cheaters, liars and downright jerks don’t deserve you, and you shouldn’t let them be in your life if they cause you to be anything less than happy.

You may lose your faith in humanity and you may be hatin’ on men for while, but it doesn’t feel that way forever. Don’t dwell on it, and don’t spend hours going over what went wrong over and over again in your head. What’s done is done. Life goes on. There are so many things to be happy about in life – things that don’t involve a boy who doesn’t appreciate how amazing you actually are.

My last break-up, Chef Boy, was the hardest. It was for reasons out of our control that we broke up, not because he was a jerk, lied to me or cheated on me. Life happened and we couldn’t keep up with it. So unfortunately he won’t be subject to any man bashing.

So girls, and boys because I know that us girls can be jerks too, I am going to give you the best advice I can and that is to remind yourself how lucky you are every single day for the things you may not even notice. It’s incredible how much better it makes you feel.

Live. Laugh. Love.