5 Social Situations That Have Me Reeling

When someone's bra (or worse, nipple) is showing
This is a particular kind of situation where, if it's your friend you can just pull up their top or take a photograph for shits and giggles, but if it's someone you don't know all that well, well then that's social etiquette gone out the window as there is no right answer as to how you should behave. The first problem is, that male or female, you can't help but look. It's as if your eye is drawn to the nippular area without your control and it takes a lot of concentration to look at this lady's eyes.
The situation becomes considerably worse if, rather than a peer, it is a tutor, fellow employee or someone elderly. Because, you cannot, of course, mention it, but it becomes the only thing you can think about, and you know everyone else is thinking the same thing, but you can't even talk to anyone else about it for fear of being called a pervert or necrophiliac.
You can either try to ignore it, which is exceedingly difficult when the day is dull and you have little else to distract you, or you can just end the underlying awkwardness and shout "get your tits out!" and run like the wind.

When someone you vaguely know ignores you
We all know the situation.
"Hi!" You shout emphatically, waving your arm for good measure. The person you wave at just walks on by, perhaps giving you a queer look, having not the faintest idea who you are and unsure as to why you are so enthused to see them. Speaking of, so are you. You put your arm down, but the damage is done as this is the point where someone you know walks past, grinning at you.
"Friend of yours then?"
You mumble obscenities and try to change the subject, but the pinkish hue on your cheeks does not fade for at least 3 minutes.

Bikini Wax
This is a social situation that, after years of getting used to it, I'm still not used to. Getting your less than groomed vagina out in front of a random woman is just an unpleasant experience. Firstly the pain is worse than getting branded and you have to somehow control your screams of pain and condemnations of this woman to hell, despite her ripping rooted hairs out of your nethereigions. Then, there's the small talk. Without it, there's a danger of shouting obscenities, but it's just plain awkward when conversation lulls. Getting waxed during the Autumn/Winter months is a blessing for one reason; The X Factor. There are numerous things to say after every show- Cheryl's dress vs. Dannii's, how we secretly would shag Simon Cowell, and how it's just all so dull with out Jedward! However, small talk during the Summer months is a nightmare. I suggest keeping up to date with Katie Price's life as a fall back.
The worst part is putting your pants back on after. It feels kind of like a booty call; you've shared intimacies with this person, but you know they're never going to call you and 6 weeks later you know you're going to come crawling back, despite the inevitable pain it puts you through. You just have to waddle out of there, head held high with the comfort of knowing even if you never have a lesbian experience, at least you've had the thrill of another woman seeing your vagina.

When you make a sex joke in front of your mum, who then understands it
"This bread just isn't getting hard!" my Mum said after putting a ciabatta in the oven.
"Try rubbing it." I replied. Look, it just popped out as a reflex after being friends with mostly boys, where sexual innuendos are just part of the day to day. But nothing could have prepared me for her answer.
"Ooh yes, a cheeky handjob might do the trick!" She chortled. I looked at her, eyes bulging, and then had to leave the room, feeling disgusted with her. It got worse when I bumped into my father in the hallway and, seeing my horrified expression asked, "Steffi, what is it?"
"Mum made a sex joke."
"Oh come on Steffi, it's not like you don't understand them, is it now?"
Colour rushed to my cheeks and I ran up to my room. This is a social situation nothing can prepare you for when you're 13.

When you see someone for the first time after having slept with them
You will never bump into a person you have slept with when you are looking amazing, aloof and, most importantly, with a friend to fake laugh with. No, no, instead, you will see them at an extreme inopportune moment, like when you are rushing somewhere, looking a little sweaty and not in a healthy glowing way, carrying several bags and perhaps with an unidentifiable dark smudge on your nose. Or you will see them at first from a distance, and then you know the non committal nod is coming but there's nothing you can do about it, and you have to suffer 30 excruciating steps before realising that you have to come up with an appropriate response, and then half smile a few seconds too late. Either way, there will never be a time when you will bump into an ex lover for the first time looking perfect, but at least you only have to do it once... Oh wait. It never stops being awkward, just FYI.

Drunk Stef

Generally, I pride myself on being a nice person. I try my hardest not to speak badly about people behind their back (unless they deserve it) and I try to make sure I'm there for people when they need me.
Drunk Stef, however, thinks a little differently. It seems it is her mission for every evening I'm out to ruin all friendships, relationships, and most of my bodily organs. Now I'm not saying that Drunk Stef rears her head every time I have a glass of wine, but she does appear after a certain point- and with a vengeance.
It's like every tiny little thing that has been niggling away at me is suddenly a massive issue and is voiced by Drunk Stef to the offending person/inanimate object.

Most recently, Drunk Stef has done some serious damage to my relationships. It's true, I did have doubts about my relationship with my boyfriend previous to Drunk Stef's appearance; we were fighting a lot, we hardly ever spoke, there was committment issues on both sides and we were both a source of stress and annoyance in one another's lives, so not the ideal relationship by any means. The final straw came when he forgot that I had an assessed presentation, something I had been stressing about for weeks, and I saw red. I was so angry at him, but mostly hurt that he could forget something like that while I am expected to remember everything he does. It then struck me that he was actually a bit of a selfish person for numerous other, mostly silly, reasons, and I got it in my head that this guy who, fair enough always put himself first, was the most selfish dick to ever walk the planet. A bottle of wine and some overthinking later was about the time Drunk Stef showed up.

Now I've set the scene, I will go into the excruciating details (from what I rememeber) of what Drunk Stef did which has ruined my relationship with him. Firstly, she rang him telling him what an arsehole he was. Strike one. This went down well, after which we concluded we would just see each other at a mutual friend's birthday later that evening. A few hours later, I saw him at said birthday party and Drunk Stef was literally screaming obsceneties at him, and got pretty tearful. She did not consider his emotions. She did not care about the consequences. All that mattered to her was that he understood how she felt and understood that he was a horrible person. Strike two. Then, amidst all the screaming and shouting he said, desperately, "I love you."

"No you don't, stop lying to me! If you loved me you wouldn't make me feel like this! And I know I said I loved you but I just don't know any more!" she shouted back at him. It probably looked like that scene in The Exorcist when the little girl's eyes are all bulging and the devil's words come out of her mouth. Probably looked as attractive too. Drunk Stef thought the I love you was bullshit, and it was this that infuriated her more than anything and caused her to utter the words, "it's over," at which point he left, walked outside and after some more tearful talking, walked off. Drunk Stef did nothing to stop him. She didn't care that she had upset him, in fact she thought he had deserved it so she asked someone to slam the door in his face and got herself another drink.

Drunk Stef chose her moment particularly well, 3 days before her boyfriend had an exam, and 2 days before she had to hand in a 4,000 word essay. Nice one. She really is an awful, awful being and she really does have an innate ability to fuck everything up. The thing is, it's me that has to be held accountable for her actions, it's me that has to apologise for her and it's me that now has to deal with the consequences. Okay, fine. While alcohol can be used as an excuse for a lot of things, there's still a part of you in whatever drunken demon chooses to surface on a night out. And that's the part that has given me this horrible sicky feeling, because I am, I've realised, a bit of a horrible person. But hey, at least I'm not so heartless that I no longer know the emotion of guilt.

The guy still hasn't spoken to me, not that I blame him, and is ignoring my calls and texts. Who knows when he will decide to let me apologise to him... Any bets?

Chapstick Man

I was on the tube into town to do some shopping, and I was looking around the tube carriage when I spotted a young,  very, very good looking man of approximately 25 years of age. Naturally, my eyelids fluttered, in a flirtatious manner rather than an I'm-going-to-faint sort of way, and I subtly gave him the once over. I was mid undressing him with my eyes when I saw it. One could hardly miss it, poking out of his jeans; a stick of cherry Chapstick.
Well, I was in such a state of shock I must have been staring for a while before a flurry of thoughts came into my mind. Firstly, what was a man of such bountiful good looks doing with a Chapstick in his pocket? I gave him another analytical stare and concluded that he wasn't gay (the Nuts magazine poking out of his rucksack gave me my first clue). Couldn't he then have got one in a less conspicuous colour?
Then my next emotion hit me; anger. How very dare he? Do all men go around stealing women's beauty secrets? Now, while I am pretty confident he paid for said Chapstick, he still stole it from us, us women who are creatures of beauty and, most importantly, mystery. I gradually began to feel offended that this man had the audacity to go out and buy a product he knew would give him as beautifully soft lips as us girls. And my mind continued to wonder. No longer would the wonder of how we stay so smooth and feel so soft and smell so good be a mystery if men like Chapstick Man kept stealing our trade secrets!
Suddenly I felt embarrassed. I felt like I was sitting in the train carriage stark naked, no, worse, I felt like I was naked bar my granny pants. I felt very aware I hadn't shaved my legs and had forgotten to apply an extra layer of concealer and began to feel very exposed. If he knew the secret of soft kissable lips, what else did Chapstick Man know? And would he share it with others? I randomly thought of that quote from Spiderman, you know, "with great power comes great responsibility," and wondered whether Chapstick Man believed himself to be some sort of chosen one, chosen to expose the secrets of women everywhere.
Can you imagine if men saw us as we really were? Imagine if they knew the ritual involved in getting to look like we do, the hours spent, the hairs plucked/shaved/waxed, the products applied to the face, hair, body? While long term boyfriends are gradually eased into this loss of mystery, random men cannot know this information.
While I got, I'll admit it, a little flustered while thinking about all this, I became aware that I had spend the last 3 - 4 minutes staring at this man's crotch. I quickly stole a glance at his face hoping he hadn't noticed- he had, and he sat there smirking at me in that gross, oily manner that only Mediterranean men seem to effortlessly master. I made a disgusted noise at the back of my throat which came out as a sort of phlegmmy cough and looked up pointedly at the tube map.
Clearly we were nearing his stop as Chapstick Man stood up ready to depart from the train. But wait- could it be? Yes, it could. There it was, clear as day, his bright pink cherry Chapstick lay abandoned on his seat. Now, there was still time for me to point it out to him, putting my selfish need for feminine mystery to one side, but then it occurred to me- would it be in fact, rude, to point out he had left his girly lipbalm on his seat? From the gross way he smirked at me though, I thought his masculinity deserved to be challenged, but just as I was about to say something, the doors opened and he stepped off the carriage.
I stood up, stupidly, before I realised this wasn't my stop, and I would have to then unexplainedly sit back down again. Random actions make people on the tube very uncomfortable, so I turned this impulsive standing up into a lunge for Chapstick Man's Chapstick. As the doors closed and the train began to move again, I caught sight of Chapstick man patting his pocket and looking toward the speeding train. I don't know if he saw, but I held the offending item up to the window with a smug smile on my face, before I realised I must look like a complete tit, holding a lipbalm up against the window and grinning like a mad woman.
I got off at the next stop and put the Chapstick in a bin on Bond Street. Better destroy the evidence if we don't want men to know all our secrets.