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Dear AKIA:
I broke up from my boyfriend in January because I found out he was seeing someone else on the sly. It was a major screaming, crying, throwing things scene (well, several of them really). I was a total wreck for WEEKS AND WEEKS. All I really wanted to do was lie on the couch eating crisps and watching old films, but my mother wouldn't let me. So I went to school like usual, even though each day was what you could call a fresh hell since I'd see him again, wouldn't I? (I tried walking to classes with my eyes closed and my friends guiding me, but if they got distracted by someone and stopped to chat or explain why they were late to class I'd usually end up walking into a wall, so we all got tired of that.) I was finally back to normal when all of a sudden he started ringing me again. He says he made a really big mistake (as if I didn't know that!!!). And he's really sorry and wants me to take him back. Deep down in my heart I don't want to take him back, but he rings me every night and texts me all day long and he's starting to wear me down. I keep remembering all the good times we had together before I realised what a two-timing berk he is. (And besides, the things I always liked about him are still there - the cute smile, the funny jokes, the way he's so mad for ketchup sandwiches - aren't they?) I keep telling him to stop bothering me, but he says he won't stop till I give in. What should I do?
I Can Have Him but I Don't Really Want Him
Dear Can but Don't:
I know you're confused and all, but if you're serious about not wanting him back then this is a complete no brainer. Here's what you do:
DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE!!!!
I mean, really, what could be easier? Face it, as long as you keep hitting that button you're telling him to keep trying.
Dear, dear Aunt-Know-It-All:
I've never been much good at putting on make-up, so my mum got me one of those mirrors with the lights all round it for my birthday. I was thrilled at first, but now I'm beginning to think she didn't give it to me so I'd look better, but to keep me out of the bathroom for her own selfish reasons. Because yesterday I happened to catch myself in a wing mirror and I don't look better! I look precisely the same (even though it takes me an extra hour to do myself up now because there's nobody banging on the door and shouting at me to hurry - and I spend a FORTUNE only buying top-of-the-range cosmetics). Am I DOOMED to never, ever look my best?
Dear Doomed:
As any professional make-up artist will tell you (and probably has if you've ever picked up a magazine), it's not How Much You Spend, it's Where You Put It On. Meaning that Natural Light is what you want (the sort that comes from outdoors, not tiny light bulbs). You want to be out of doors (unless your mother, unlike mine, cleans the windows on a regular basis). But (alas and alack!) it's not all good news. Outdoors has its own problems. I had a TRULY HIDEOUS accident on the 24 bus one day when the driver decided to test the limits of the curve-taking abilities of a double-decker and over a year's worth of foundation, bronzer, moisturiser, concealers, blusher, mascara, eye-liner, shadow, lip gloss and cotton buds were flung to every corner of the lower deck. (Thank God I wasn't doing my eyes at the time, or I might've been blinded!) I can't tell you how humiliating it was, especially when the man across the aisle started yelling at me because he got a bit of foundation on his suit (it was tres worse then the time my jeans fell down at dancing at a party!!!). Plus, I then had a major argument with the driver (I swear, I think they must be chosen for their quick and irrational tempers!) because he thought I SHOULD PICK IT ALL UP. I said, you're having a laugh, aren't you? You expect me to crawl under seats and all? I mean, nobody's ever going to eat off the floor of a bus (not unless they're trying to kill themselves), are they? And you don't want to stand out on the pavement in case a photographer for the local paper hears about it and takes your picture for the Only in London column. Best is if you've got a garden.
Dear Aunt K:
I don't know why, but I've NEVER liked the colour pink. Not even when I was little and you're not meant to know better. But the other day they said in the papers that science has finally worked out why blue is for boys - it's because GIRLS LIKE PINK BETTER. Can you believe it? It's genetic! (This is because men went out hunting but women picked berries.) So now I'm wondering what's wrong with me (you know, maybe I'm not really feminine). Any ideas?
Blue
Dear Blue:
I'm going to answer your first question with a question of my own. [Do I believe it?] Are you mad? Of course I don't believe it. That's like saying girls are genetically programmed to wear six-inch heels! (Why? So they can reach the berries either up the tree?) But just to make certain, I asked my aunt (the hard-core feminist with no heterosexual tendencies whatsoever) who actually LIKES pink what she thought. She said people will believe anything if you say a scientist said it. She said and anyway, according to The Ladies' Home Journal of 1918, it used to be the other way round! Pink for the boy and blue for the girl. [Note: I did ask her why it was pink for boys etc, but she refused to tell me. She said it was just more sexist propaganda!] As for your second question: Stop believing everything you read in the papers!!!!
Dear Auntie K:
My Boyfriend DUMPED me. I used to think that hell was finding yourself on the bus without your phone, but now I know I was wrong. I can't eat, I can't sleep and every time I see him I cry. You'd think this would soften the lump of stone he has instead of a heart and make him see how much he means to me, but it hasn't. He's told everybody he thinks I'm pathetic. And not only that! Now whenever he sees me coming he turns right round and practically RUNS in the opposite direction!!! It's not like I'm stalking him or anything. We GO TO THE SAME SCHOOL! If I can't get him back, then what can I do to regain my self-respect and get over him? (My parents refuse to move to another town.)
Dear Stuck:
You've got to get into a COMPLETELY different mindset here. Whether you want to get him back (WHY???? HE DUMPED YOU!!!!) or you want to regain your self-respect, etc, the solution is the same. Start eating and sleeping, and stop crying (it is so tres bad for your eyes and your complexion!). Then, go shopping. Get yourself a new outfit you really love. Do something about your hair. Go back to wearing make-up. Make sure that every time he sees you, you're not only dry-eyed, you're looking TOTALLY BRILLIANT and having a good time (or at least smiling). If you want him to regret dumping you, then walking round like a drowned ghost isn't going to do the trick. You want him to look at you (preferably over the heads of your many other admirers) and wonder what he could possibly have been thinking, breaking up with someone as wonderful and popular as you. The beauty of this is that even if it doesn't make him see what a complete bonehead he's been, just the fact that you're out and about, chatting to other boys and looking terrific (as opposed to sitting in a dark room, weeping) will mean that you'll soon start feeling better. [I call this manoeuvre Don't Get Sad, Get Even!]
Dear Aunt K:
What's wrong with ME? I have a bubbly personality, I wear the right clothes, I listen to the right music, I've got the general idea of how a football game works, and so forth. But even though I hang out with a lot of boys I've never had anything you could mistake for a date (unless you count group trips to the cinema where I always wind up with a lap full of soda during the popcorn fight). Do you think I should have my breasts enlarged or my lips plumped?
Stranded on the Desert of Dating
Dear Stranded
Before you start chopping up your body and putting something in your breasts so that the next time you're on an aeroplane they explode (which means besides the incredible humiliation you also risk being arrested as a terrorist), you should ask yourself this: Do I really want to date people who are only interested in me because my boobs can double as a life raft or my mouth reminds them of that film star (the one who wore her husband's blood in a vial round her neck and then divorced him!)? Anyone that shallow is going to dump you the minute some girl with even bigger breasts staggers over the horizon (though of course there's a tres good chance she'll never make it!).
Dear Auntie K:
I don't get it. I pamper myself just the way the adverts tell you to. I mean, I KNOW I'M WORTH IT!!! According to my mum, for what I spend on body care products I could've gone around the world. I've got shampoo with enough fruit essence in it to be edible, I've got a conditioner that's GUARANTEED to make your hair thicker and more manageable, I've got three cleansing lotions, a facial steamer, bath oils, shower gels, scrubs, masks, and skin creams to cover every possible weather condition (including sand storms and sub-zero temperatures) - but still my hair is flat, dull and brittle and my skin is dry and more like paper than velvet to the touch. Are there some really good products you can recommend?
Still in West Hampstead
Dear West Hampstead:
Believe ME - these are dark and dangerous waters you're swimming in. First of all, you HAVE NO IDEA what garbage they put in some of these products. I know because in my house you have to read EVERY label before you can buy it, and what they don't tell you on the label the eco-warrior tells you - OVER AND OVER!!! (Turned out there was actually urine in my shampoo!) And you know those little leaflets that come with a lot of things, the ones you throw away as soon as you open the packet? You should read those too. I know this is going to ASTOUND you, but since you're practically an adult you should know the TRUTH about the world - which is that you can't trust anyone. Even tooth paste and tampons come with health warnings! But there are things I can recommend for your skin and hair WITHOUT HESITATION. They're called fruits and vegetables. You may think I'm saying this because I live in a cultural Bermuda Triangle with hippies and feminists and lesbians and religious fanatics and all, but it isn't. I'm saying this because it's true. I mean, just think about it. How can what you put ON yourself be more important than what you put IN? It doesn't make sense. Nature's been around a lot longer than L'Oreal or Nivea or Estee Lauder. They didn't invent good skin and hair. Nature did. That's why She invented fruits and vegetables. I'm not saying you shouldn't stay home rubbing creams into your body all day instead of going to Hawaii or someplace like that (where there are tropical beaches practically swarming with hunky blokes with tans and serious muscle definition!) - but when you take a break from that you should have an avocado or an apple.
Dear Aunt Know-It-All:
Absolutely everybody in my group has a body piercing. All the girls have had their belly buttons done, a couple have lip or eyebrow rings to - and one has a silver ball in her tongue. But my parents are so old fashioned that they say they'll cut off my pocket money AND my clothes allowance if I get even the tiniest stud. They don't seem to understand that they're pissing all over my social life here. They might as well make me wear pleated skirts and Go-go boots. I'll be an outcast! (And don't even think of telling me to get fake rings or anything like that - that's like a zillion times worse than nothing.)
Social Alien
Dear Alien:
I know exactly what you're going through, believe me! My parents (and TONS of people who aren't my parents) are always putting their feet down on my happiness too! It amazes me how OLD some people can get without getting any smarter. It's like they live in some sort of Time Bubble that was sealed the day they turned twenty. Everything's blah blah blah this and blah blah blah that. (No wonder we never listen to them!) Which isn't to say that there haven't been quite a few TOTALLY DISASTROUS fashions over the years (do the words PSYCHADELIC PRINTS, BASEBALL JACKETS, PEASANT BLOUSES, RUFFLES, BELLBOTTOMS and LEG WARMERS sound familiar?), which you can see for yourself by looking at old photos of your gene donors. Fortunately, styles change so quickly that no one's going to remember when you make a really serious mistake - not even you. I found a pair of bum huggers in my wardrobe the other day and I didn't even remember buying them, never mind wearing the bloody things! (Which is probably just as well, since I do remember what other people looked like in them.) My aunt the Raging Feminist wrote a paper once on the dangers of fashion (and this was way before Naomi Campbell slipped on the catwalk in her mega platform shoes). There was a lot in it about things like corsets and foot binding. Sappho said they were called fashion but what they really were were TORTURE. Apparently, fashion can be FATAL. Sappho said corsets might give you a sixteen-inch waist, but they made up for that by moving your insides around and making it hard to breathe. Sappho said that was why women in Victorian novels are always fainting - lack of air. Foot binding more or less made you a cripple. I have to admit, she's got a point. I myself did have a tres unfortunate incident with a nose ring once so I know the price a girl sometimes has to pay to be trendy. On the other hand, if you really have your heart set on a piercing then get one where the old folks at home won't notice. Like your navel. Even if it does go septic it probably won't kill you. (Unlike just about everything else!)
[to be continued!!!]
(Note to You: For those of you trying to find my old Diary it is here... )
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Sunday 2nd September 2007