My parents want to send me to finishing school.

This was made abundantly clear last Christmas, when I unwrapped three books entitled ‘The Bluffers Guide To Etiquette’, ‘Her Ladyship’s Guide To The Queens English’ and ‘The A-Z Of Modern Manners’.

They are a bloody hoot of a read.

I’ve decided to share with you a few extracts of ‘advice’ and how I have managed to reflect them in my daily life.

Being Emotional 

‘Don’t get sentimental or try to get your man to say something he doesn’t want to by working on his emotions. Men don’t like tears, especially in public places’ 

YES, WELL… Once on a first date, I got rather drunk and emotional about my recently deceased dog, Teddie. Through a series of hideous flashbacks, I remember raising my wine glass and hollaring ‘A TOAST TO TEDDIE!’ before attempting to sing the first few lines of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.

I think it was at that point that I was taken home in a taxi.

Drinking

‘Never get dunker than your love interest and know your limits- a graceful drunk is always alert to the warning signs of impending toxication and ready to go home before an enjoyable evening ends in tears’

HA DE HA HA ROFLS LOLZIES OHHHH WHERE ON EARTH DOES ONE BEGIN.

The time when I sat on someone’s front doorstep with a traffic cone on my head and declared ‘IM A GNOME AND IM NOT GOING HOME’?

Perhaps three weeks ago, when I brought a family of four Hungarians home for a nightcap and a game of charades?

Or maybe the time when I locked myself out of my parents house at 3am and decided to shout up to my fathers bedroom window ‘RAPUNZEL, RAPUNZEL LET DOWN YOUR HAIR!!!’ (my father is nearly bald).

The thing is, I know my limits. I just CHOOSE TO EXCEED THEM.

The instance that sticks vividly in my mind, like a small turd pressed into the pages of my memory, is a night I spent in Buffalo Bar in Cardiff.

I was a most pleasant evening, until my ex turned up, who I hadn’t seen since our break up a year ago.

I mean, I think I kept it together pretty well. Enquired about normal things, such as what he was up to now and ‘DOES YOUR GRANDMOTHER STILL KNIT THOSE ADORABLE LITTLE BONNETS?’

But of course, the moment his back was turned I staggered up to the bar, like a cow on rohypnol and wheezed ‘Make me your strongest cocktail and then BRING ME FIVE OF THEM’.

The next thing I remember is waking up in the girls toilets. It was eerily quiet. Yes that’s right, you guessed it. THE CLUB HAD LOCKED UP AND GONE HOME FOR THE NIGHT. Tables and chairs stacked, the lot.

I was eventually let out by a lovely cleaning lady and then found by my friends an hour later in Burger King, eating a Double Whopper.

Internet dating

‘Choosing your date in much the same way as you pick dishes from a menu lacks the finesse and subtlety of traditional courtship, but it opens you up to a world of possibility unavailable through conventional channels’.

Ahhhh Internet dating. Yes.

After hearing several rave reviews and success stories from friends, I finally succumbed to pressure and joined plenty of fish.com.

They say ‘fish’… I say PLENTY OF FUCKING BATSHIT CRAZY WIERDOS.

I lasted 4 days before deleting my account, mentally scarred from the experience.

The final straw came when I received a private email from a guy asking me to be his ‘submissive’ (I think this was at the peak of the 50 Shades craze)

His profile picture was a man in a business suit, with no head (I mean that it was cropped out, not like a severed head).

Attached to the email was a seven page document listing my ‘duties’ as a submissive, including the line ‘you will be rewarded for sexual acts in whipped cream and vegetables’.

I decided not to meet him.

Tattoos

‘The upper classes normally abhor or shun tattoos. You should do the same’.

Whoops.

Smoking

These days an attachment to nicotine has to be very strong indeed if you are going to stand the social pariah status of the smoker. Do not start’

Whoops.

Swearing

‘The foolish and wicked practise of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character despises it’

Double fucking whoops.

Shyness

‘Shyness can be crippling, especially in the young. Ordinary shyness can be conquered by simply putting yourself into timidity-inducing scenarios and forcing yourself to join in’ 

Somehow… SOMEHOW I just don’t feel that shyness is something I particularly suffer from.

Even as a toddler, I was always somewhat of an ‘exhibitionist’.

My parents have a hideous, HIDEOUS anecdote from my childhood. Apparently, I used to drag my empty toy box up to their bedroom door and sit in it, stark bollock naked. I would then proceed to lie on my back, with my legs pulled up over my head and shout ‘SPECIAL DELIVERY- IT’S YOUR CHRISTMAS TURKEY!’

Till next time.

G xx