The mid-twenties: a sliding scale.

In my experience, most people in their mid twenties tend to fall somewhere along a spectrum. At one end, you are one of those people who have met ‘the one’, have settled down and are in the process of buying a house, a marriage and babies. Towards the other end you have those who are perpetually single, get drunk a lot and find adulting to be a daily struggle. Take a butchers at which side I tend to ere on.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there is anything wrong with sitting at either end of this life seesaw. It’s just that sometimes this divide can be painfully obvious, and as someone who has many couple friends and very few single friends (I have four quite close single friends: two are perpetual daters, one is my ex boyfriend from yesteryear and the other lives in Wiltshire – most of the other single friends I have a are either much older and maturer than me or I barely ever hang out with), I see it on a regular basis.

Sometimes it’s hilarious. For example, recently I visited home for the weekend. Now, every time I go home, I make an effort to see my friends, so on this occasion, I went to a house warming party for two of my friends who were moving in together. At this party, I met George the tiny human. His mum and dad are two of my best married friends from school, Jodi and Luke. So far, so couple. I held George and managed to make it look natural for all of the 10 seconds in which it took to take the below photo. Don’t get me wrong, he’s very cute but I spent the entire time in fear I would drop him/ get sicked on/ get pooed on/ get cried on. Much to my dad's dismay, at this point, children are not really my thing.

Later in the night we vacated to the pub, where I proceeded, in a very mature fashion, to start a competitive bout of ‘save the queen’ and drink much gin and tequila. This was the second picture taken that evening:

About an hour after as the pub closed, I jumped on this guy’s back. Rory was even drunker than me on account of it being his 20th birthday so this was always going to a flawed plan. Needless to say he didn’t catch me and instead we fell backwards, with me smacking my head on the pavement, almost knocking myself out in the process. In the words of Jess: I could have died. After almost bashing down the pub door to get back in for some ice, I was driven home. I even had to wake my parents to let them know what had happened just in case I died unexpectedly in the night. I’m totally parenting material.

There’s nothing like this decent from a civilised couple and baby filled evening to absolute carnage to really highlight how different people’s lives can be at this age.

Having been in and out relationships like a yoyo for the past forever, I’ve learned to cope over the years with what it’s like to hang out with couples, and for the most part I’ve been quite lucky. Just before third year of uni, my ex and I broke up over the summer and I moved into a house which most of the time had four couples living in it. Other than my friend Jen, with whom until recently I had a weird thing whereby we couldn’t both be in a relationship at the same time, and our friends James, Nathan, Heather, all of my childhood friends are in serious long-term relationships or married to their school sweethearts. Both of my best friends live with their bfs. I currently live and work exclusively with people who are in relationships. None of these awesome people make it their mission to rub their relationships in my face, which is nice.

However, this does present the issue of who I can go on nights out with and get my flirt on. So what I’m saying is there is a nice big wing-woman and fellow single pringle shaped hole in my life so if there is anyone out there who fancies taking on the challenge, I’m accepting CVs.

Sorry, got a little sidetracked there. The point I’m trying to make is that life would be boring if our lives were all at the same stage at the same time. Some people marry the person they lose their virginity to and some people don’t meet the love of their lives until they have been through the relationship and heartbreak ringer a few times. Some people have lots of babies in their twenties and some people leave it until their 30s or 40s and some people never have children at all. Some people are put together and are mature and some people simply cannot adult. Somehow the majority of us get to where we’re supposed to be eventually, it’s just a matter of timing.

So there, smug marrieds.

On the topic of boobs

Boobs. Breasts. Knockers. Tits. Big ones. Small ones. Some as big as your head. Boobs of two different sizes. Boobs that are saggy. Boobs that made of silicone. No matter what you call them or what they look like, the fact is over 50% of the population has a pair, if you include moobs into the equation. They feed our children and they are part of what makes us women. It’s an area of the body that is poked, prodded, ogled at and dreamed about by every straight, horny teenage boy as well as most horny adult men. They are a big part of our lives and so this week, I am devoting a whole post to the everyday practicalities of carrying around a pair of boobs all the god-given day.

It’s pretty safe to say, in the grand scale of things, I have quite sizeable boobs. As my mum always said, I pushed to the front of the boob queue and selfishly stole it all for myself  (as a disclaimer, I am in no way bragging about this fact, as I’m sure you’ll come to quickly realise). Now, being well endowed in the chest department is both a blessing and a curse. There are definitely things I can’t complain about, from getting served quickly in bars to having a handy storage area for when I don’t have pockets or a bag. I can, quite comically, go hands free with drinks and they serve as a great place to prop my laptop when watching TV in bed. Thanks to these puppies I give excellent hugs (or so I’ve been told) and yeah, I’m not going to lie, when the moment requires it, having effortless cleavage is a terrific pulling tool.

But there are also a great many things about having big boobs that are less than ideal. For example, finding nice clothes that fit well in all the right places is a nightmare. The fashion industry does a very good job of forgetting that women’s boobs come in all different sizes, meaning therefore that I can almost never find shirts that fit, party dresses that don’t show nearly my whole bra or bikinis that will offer any support at the beach. Unless you are shopping in somewhere like Marks and Spencer (what a hero) or Debenhams, you can forget about finding pretty, affordable and supportive bras in anything above a D cup. There are whole dedicated high-street underwear retailers that don’t sell bras for my size. Not great.

And there are certain clothes that are just not an option. Outfits that look effortless and elegant on smaller-chested, slender women can end up looking completely slutty and inappropriate on anyone with a larger than average bust. Backless dresses are a no-go, as there is very little chance I’m going without a bra or one of those awful stick-on contraptions. And you can forget about polo neck jumpers, which will make you look like you are on the verge of falling over forwards at all times.

Sports are also a problem. Finding the right sports bra to fit your shape and offer the right amount of support is a marathon in itself, but no matter how steel-reinforced your bra is, they are still going to jiggle and inevitably going to hurt a little and cause back pain. You sometimes find yourself wrapping your arms around yourself like a hug as an extra makeshift bra to stop them from bouncing. There are moves in yoga and Pilates when you are lying on your front and the instructor asks you to lift your chest off the floor. The only way this would be possible is if I had the most flexible spine in the world, which I do not. They also get extremely sweaty and gross and which can even cause them to become infected. Dream about that one, lads.

My last gripe is that there are those men who stare when it really is inappropriate to do so. For the most part, I’m pretty used to it and to be honest I don’t really mind, but there have been times in my life when this has made me feel really rather uncomfortable. For example, I once had a meeting at work with a new client, who I was informed at a much later date had been openly ogling my boobs for the entire time he was there. Luckily, my boss had a massive go at the guy and let him know that he was being unacceptable. I hadn’t noticed at the time and she only told me this when I left that agency, which I’m really thankful for as it meant that I was able to work with him and not feel awkward, but still thinking about that now makes me feel a little queasy. You would think working in an industry mostly filled with women and gay men may protect you from this kind of misogynistic behaviour, but evidently not.

So in conclusion, I can honestly say that having boobs is not as easy as it looks. They have their pros and their cons and on balance, if I could give away a couple of cups sizes, I totally would. I’m sure when I have babies, I will change my mind and will relish in the ample supply of free baby food but for now, I will continue to complain loudly in clothes shops and on the treadmill. And I don’t care if that means making a tit out of myself.

This post is dedicated to a fantastic woman who I used to work with who I discovered this week has breast cancer. I want her to know that I am rooting for her and that I have every faith that if anyone can kick cancer’s arse, she can.

Giving blood: Myth-busters

Last week I received an unexpected greetings card. It wasn’t because someone pranked me and changed my birthday on Facebook and neither was it from that creepy library guy from uni with the high pitched voice and bare feet (oh god). It was because, since I was 17, I have given blood ten times. Ten times I have voluntarily had someone stick a needle in my arm and drain me like a vampire. And at the risk of verging into Twilight territory, it isn’t as bad as you might think. There are all sorts of horror stories and misconceptions about blood donation that are, for the most part, completely unfounded.

Firstly, there is the rumour that when you give blood, you are more than likely to feel faint, vomit and pass out in dramatic, damsel in distress fashion. I can tell you from personal experience that this is pretty unlikely to happen. In all of my ten trips to the donation station, I have only seen this happen to two people, both of whom were very small people, who were probably on the verge of the 50kg weight limit and hadn’t had enough to eat and drink prior to arrival. I say this because there are certain questions and precautions that the nurses take when you arrive to ensure that you are fit and healthy to donate. In all likelihood, if you are over 55kg and in good health, you should be just fine. Luckily I am tall and strong as ox so I’ve always been ok, although I wouldn’t recommend vigorous yoga (it’s totally a thing) the next morning as it may cause you to almost pass out in the down dog position. It's all about initiative guys. In an effort to completely contradict myself, one time when I was feeling particularly zealous and initiative-free, I challenged my dad to a race to see who could give a pint the fastest, because why not. I won the race, because I am a pro.

A second glaring alarm bell for some people is the thought of the needle. Now this is one which I cannot dispel as I know that for a lot of people, needles scare the bejesus out of you, much like clowns, feet and standing on three consecutive drains does to me. And I totally get that one measly blog post from me is unlikely to be the catalyst for your decision to embrace the needle (in fairness that’s not something I would recommend – it’s pretty sharp). But what I can say is this. It really doesn’t hurt. It’s not like when you stand on Lego or give yourself a paper-cut. All it is is a small scratch and you don’t even have to look. It actually hurts more removing the super-glue plaster they make you put on afterwards that rips all of your arm hair out and leaves a week-long sticky residue in its wake. If ever there was an excuse to not give blood it’s that devil plaster (you should probably do something about that, NHS – it’s putting people off).

A third and final reason that I have heard people give and I have certainly done this is that you can’t fit it into your life. Now this is something I can completely relate to. In our busy lives, it can be difficult to fit in such a trivial thing such as giving blood. But what I have realised is that it’s really not such a big deal. You can only do it once every 16 weeks as a woman and every 12 weeks as a man and it takes about an hour of your time. That’s maximum five hours per year. I spend more time than that watching How I Met Your Mother in one sitting. And if I or one of my family members were in a car accident or god forbid got a spot of the Big C, I would be pretty thankful for the time someone dragged themselves away from Netflix.

I’m really sorry if this came over at all preachy, because that was not my aim at all, but I really am passionate about how important this is. It’s pretty scary that in the last year, the numbers of new people going out and giving blood fell by 40%. In total less than 4% of us give up some of our red stuff for the 1 in 4 people that will need it at some point in our lives.

Go on, you know you want to. They’ll even give you free biscuits and crisps afterwards which, I’m not sure if you know, don’t contain any calories. If that isn’t incentive enough to go, I don’t know what is.

https://www.blood.co.uk/