Living with a couple is like doing a skydive...

...in that, on paper, it’s a really, really, really bad idea.

Much like flinging yourself from a plane, entering into a houseshare with two love birds could and should end in disaster, especially if you’re a bit scared of heights (or in this case, relationships), and have read the stories about related catastrophic failures in the past.

Because even though someone else has just done it before you and survived – nay, enjoyed the experience immensely – how do you know it will be the same for you?

The fact is, you don’t. Until you put on that sexy neon jumpsuit, attach yourself to a bleach blond adrenaline junky, get into a rickety old plane and leap out of the proverbial door at 13,000 feet… well, let's be honest. It could go either way.

Fortunately, the statistics are heaped in your favour.

To dump the metaphor for a moment, these two people were your friends way before they got hitched at the hip. And in the years since, nothing’s really changed. Your friends are their friends, your collective memories of university and beyond are mostly shared: and you usually end up crashing on their sofa after a night out anyway. All that’s really changing is your sofa (now a bed upstairs), and the selection of spare clothes for the next day.

There are, admittedly, the requisite cuddles and kisses to contend with; the single girl’s nemesis.

But after four years of togetherness, your housemates' urge to jump each other in the hallway has given way to an everyday acceptance of the other’s presence. Walking in on a couple casually curled up on the sofa is nothing compared to witnessing your single housemate's independent fun streak turn to puppy-like dependence on another; her party filled weekends now spent holed up in a bedroom, romping away the giddy months of sparkling, brand new, exciting love. Get a room. And no, not this one. 

That’s not to say that everyone’s experience will be the same. I, personally, wouldn’t have inflicted my past relationships on anyone. Likewise, there’s no way I’d live with two lovers plucked randomly from the Gumtree.

As with most life experiences: to have a good time you’ve got to choose your company wisely, go with the one who has a fail safe reputation for being better than just ok.

But no jump into the unknown is without that slightly scary moment when the adrenaline stops, the parachute is deployed, and you’re floating to the ground feeling a bit sick. Or, in my case, when your new housemates are away on holiday and several jointly addressed envelopes start appearing on the doormat in their absence.

“Oh no.” you think, having assessed both the postage marks, date stamps, size, weight and dimensions and concluded that these are indeed greetings cards, and the sort which fill any single girl with a growing, slightly sicky dread.

“What about me?" thinks selfish you, "If they’re engaged, where will I go? They’ll get married, move to the country and I’ll be thrown into the HouseHunt dot com bog once again. What’s more, I’ll be forced to listen to discussions about venues, table arrangements and – gulp – holy shitting matrimony. This will not do.”

Days later, they walk through the door and you eye the finger of doom. Minutes later, your suspicions are confirmed. He done the deed. She said yes.

“But, y’know in a couple of years. Oof, not yet. I mean, there’s still so much I want to do before all that”, are the words from Girl Housemate that make the sickness recede, replaced with relief, and you throw your arms around her and start being genuinely happy for what lies ahead. You know, way ahead. You've got enough time to find a respectable plus one, at least.

And so, you find yourself adding to the list of Things You Never Thought You’d Do:

1. Jump out of a plane at 13,000 feet
2. Travel round the world
3.  Move in with a boy, then out again after three weeks
4. Find myself living, seven months later, with a newly engaged couple.

And most crucial of them all:

   5. Survive: brain, capacity to be happy for others, body (see also: heart) - all intact.

Primark Killed The Charity Shop

Image from inspiredesignblog.co.uk

Let's put something out there straight away: I ain't no fashionista. Rifling about for floaty calf length skirts that channel thy inner vintage just isn't my thing.

I also hate fancy dress. It makes me feel awkward. At a push, and in a situation where everyone else in the whole entire world was dressing up and I wanted to fit in, I'd go for a full bear outfit for maximum coverage. No "is she? Isn't she?" ambiguity. It'd be "Yes, she is. And she is clearly a bear".

So what use do I have for a charity shop, if not to see 1970s potential in dated floral blouses or finding braces for Laurel and Hardy themed nights out?

To be honest, it's rarely clothing. Accessories tend to win it: functional belts that look a bit like the one I refused to pay £50 for in Urban Outfitters. Or cut price nearly-new books, especially in my local one where I'm pretty sure someone who works for a publisher just dumps all their freebies every week (Grace Dent's How to Leave Twitter and a hardback copy of one of my favourite books, A.A.Gill is Away in one haul this weekend. Score.)

I'd love to buy clothes from a charity shop, I really would. Because as much as I'm not a vintage lovin' fashion fiend, I do love a good bargain. With rent now a fixture in my banking calendar, and in need of a big Autumn-y cardigan, this weekend I took myself home and trawled the abundance of local second hand shops for just that. But sadly, I never did get one of the big cosy grandma cardigans I imagined would be in abundance.

Instead, I got a healthy dose of disdain.

Disdain for the sheer amount of average, worn-looking, generic gumpf from Primark lining the rails.

Not the nice dresses and catwalk cast-offs you see in the magazines, or adorning the backs of fashion conscious festival goers, either. The other stuff. The guilty stuff. You know, the bits you buy in bulk, purely because of the price.

Oh, it seems like such a bargain when you get home with 30 vest tops for a fiver, doesn't it? And when you've worn it, washed it and it now resembles more a tent than a top - well, you feel a bit bad shoving it in the bin. What a waste. Nah, let's put it in a black bag and give it to those in need; the grateful receivers of refuse they can't refuse - charity.

Looking at the rails, the tell-tale Atmosphere label was everywhere. I'm not sure what your non-UK equivalent would be, but here's a 101. Think cheap, miserable, sorry looking excuses for clothes which have travelled from third world slum to first world city, only to be slapped with a £1.50 price tag for the trouble. Disposable clothing worn once, replaced, and now donated in the hope that someone else might pay for it again.

Except they're not going to, are they? Would you? No. Because it's crap. And ironically, it'll probably be more expensive in the charity shop than it was to begin with.

Like this article says: "where something’s too cheap, someone, somewhere along the line is paying"

And despite what your conscience tells you, as long as Primark's in your donation bag,  it's not going to be the person rifling through the rails in a charity shop.

Girl on the train

Last night I was on the tube when a young girl flounced onto the train. 

Laden with large envelopes, a couple of posh looking branded material bags and about five Google Map print outs, initially I was annoyed. She'd sat down next to me and plonked her bags half across my lap. Even my shuffling about didn't alert her to the space infringement, so intent she was on studying the route mapped out on the bits of paper. 

A few stops along she got out her phone, clicked down to "Mum" and pressed call. Clearly stressed, she vented that she'd been running around London all day, delivering envelopes and having asked if she could finish up tomorrow morning, they'd said no. She didn't know what time she'd be home. My irritation fell away.

I glanced down at the top envelope and saw the name of a PR firm written in the corner. We went underground and she finished the call, got out a tube map and started comparing it with the Google version, which showed three markers dotted around east London.

It was well after six o'clock, and we were still west. I took out my earphones.

"Do you know which route you're going to take yet?" I said, pointing at the maps.

It transpired the girl - who was on an unpaid internship with the PR company - lived in the Home Counties, and would still have to get back out there once she'd finished the "drops", which had to be done tonight. With what I estimated to be (at least) another hour of walking ahead of her, she wasn't even close to going home. 

She was, effectively, a free courier.

I looked at the maps with her and told her the quickest way to go, which tube lines linked with where and what I hoped was an easier route than the one mapped out. Making a mental note of the PR company name, I wished her luck and got off at my stop.

Now, I don't know how long this internship was, or any other details apart from the company name*. What I do know is that there was a young, stressed out girl on my train home who wasn't getting paid for what was well over a full day's work.

And quite frankly, if the documents inside were really that important and really couldn't wait until the next day, why would you give them to an intern to deliver on foot?

The internship situation is beyond a joke. Yes, work experience is probably the most valuable thing I ever did, and let me find out which industry I wanted to work in. But I did short term, well managed placements. I never felt taken advantage of and working past 6pm was always a choice, not an enforced rule. 

It's one thing to offer valuable experience. It's another to give someone all the jobs you don't want to do yourself or pay for, and call it an "internship". 

You'd think they'd make it against the law. 

Oh, wait...

*No names, it'd probably do more harm than good.

Onwards into the unknown, otherwise known as housesharing.

In the past, the idea of living with friends has never struck me as being a particularly good idea.

Yeah, it worked at university where you're all as downright dirty and disgusting as each other, but when you grow up a bit and start pretending to be a proper adult 'n' that, living successfully in a shared house can mean putting friendships to the test.

Even the PIB and I, in frequent discussions about the perils of living with parents, often flirted with the idea of renting a place together. But it was something I always stood firmly against: being one of my very best friends, the last thing I want to do is start stressing out because she left a cup on the floor and forgot to stock up the loo roll.

Also, given my tendency to be rather easily irritated (which, by the way, is not just a throwaway blog title, but in all likelihood an actual mental condition, ref this NY Times article  - thanks @Voneron), there has always been reticence on my behalf about living with people to whom I couldn't say "Mate, although you are on the other side of the room and the TV volume is high, the barely audible sound of you picking the skin around your finger nails is giving me enraged thoughts. Please cease immediately." or, more likely, "OHMYGODCAN'TTAKEITANYMORESHUTTHEHELLUP".

Then there's good old instinct. Any niggling doubts in my mind, unless temporarily blinded by the glare of glorious love, are usually taken fairly seriously. Like, if you think someone is showing signs of being a tad unreliable now, then chances are when you've got a £100 utilities bill about to go out and they're stalling on transferring the cash, that teeny little trait might implode and really start to get on one's tits.

All this could be negated - I supposed - by living with people you don't really know that well, whose feelings are a bit more disposable when you decide to call it a day. Or by living with a boyfriend, who will probably save you the effort when things go a bit nuts, and declare his feelings for a 30 year old woman from work after three weeks anyway. Ho-hum.

Yet the minute the text message arrived from these two friends "We have a room. Would you be interested?", the response of "Yes! Definitely!" was something I didn't even have to think about. No warning bells chimed, no worries nipped at my heels, despite the fact that the living situation would be something I'd previously, vehemently, actively discounted - living with two good friends, from my immediate social circle, who are also a (whisper it) couple. I know. Don't say it, I know. I always thought the same. But somehow, this time, it didn't really bother me.

At five days in, things are obviously still great. But having turned on the shower this morning and found the water running cold, my pen was soon poised over a note that read "Hi guys, have a lovely holiday, see you when you're back. Oh and there was no hot water this morning - hope you have better luck!", before I pausing and re-writing it, leaving off the last sentence.

At the moment I feel more settled than I have done in a long time.

And given what happened the last time I moved out, I'm not about to start guessing what little shared-living nuances lie ahead.

But one thing's for sure: as blog as my witness, passive aggressive notes will not be one of them.

Please be upstanding for the 27th Annual International Jo Day

Today is International Jo Day. 

This year I am celebrating by dragging mostly unused kitchenware from a shed at the bottom of the garden, washing it, and placing it in bags. Then I'm going to get all my clothes, the vast array of toiletries I seem to require daily, some choice photos and a selection of my favourite electronics, and pack all them up too.

Today I am 27. And I am moving out.

(Second time lucky, yeah?)

When one person's exciting news is another person's kick to the chest

There's a lot you can do to minimise the after-effects of a break up.

Surround yourself with people, keep busy.
Delete phone numbers. Don't make contact, with them or their friends.
Steer clear of their workplace / favourite pub / house.
Resist stalking online. Ideally, remove them altogether.
If that's too much, click "less-of" so their news doesn't bombard your feed.
Ignore texts.
Set up Outlook to acknowledge their e-mails with an automatic "fuck off, please" notification.
Get a blog. Write about it. Read about other people's heartbreak.

And accept that, for the significant future, good times will be closely followed by days of feeling like a dog has repeatedly shat on your shoe.

Yes, heartbroken friends, you can do all these things and more to protect yourself from extreme misery.

But there is nothing, bar a gagging order, custom made t-shirt, shutting down the worlds largest social networking site, or holding aloft a placard or banner wherever you go, that can prevent other people popping this little protective bubble that you have created.

You can't stop Facebook showing off its new 'On this day in 2010…" feature, on a day that would have been the anniversary of your now defunct relationship; something you celebrated with an extremely uncharacteristic public declaration of coupled happiness the year before.

Likewise, you can't stop other people sharing their Important News.

Now, it's worth reminding you that - as far as I'm concerned - my Ex is blacklisted. You know as much as I do about his whereabouts, work, relationships, feelings and life sans-moi.

So when my sister piped up across the table yesterday with "Oh, did I tell you that Beth saw Ex the other day?" I experienced what can be most accurately described as a big, sharp, kick to the chest.

Having clarified that the Ex in question was not in fact her Ex of the same name, I went a bit quiet. Taking my silence as encouragement, she continued.

"Yes! He was walking down Old Street. She said he was with a very plain looking gir -"

My mind quickly thrown into information overload, I interrupted seconds too late.

"Arrghhhh. Don't tell me. I don't want to know."

"Ok. But she didn't think they were a couple. Not holding hands or anything. Just friends." she dug deeper.

"Don't want to know."

"And she gave him her most disapproving look."

"I actually like to pretend he doesn't exist" I said, "Anyway. So. How's work?"

The conversation moved on, but my thoughts couldn't. You can do a lot to make life easier for yourself and get someone out of your head.

But no matter how much you pretend they don't - newsflash - they will still exist.