So. Without belittling genuinely terrible things that happen to women around the world everyday, there are a number of horrible, NAY DISTRESSING, everyday things that happen to us lady humans. These are things that are rarely experienced by our male counterparts, and they are definitely more upsetting than when the Spice Girls broke up or even when Brit shaved her hair off (albeit barely).

Sometimes it can be hard to know what to do in these situations. In fact, it can be downright soul crushing. Whether it’s embarrassment, horror or just plain discomfort, Common Lady Problems (CLP) are a grief that many of us have to deal with on a regular basis. But what are these terrible things and more importantly, how can we avoid them – and ultimately avoid looking like raging lunatics? In no particular order, here’s what and how.

1. Applying too much hair oil

I’m sure this has happened to every girl at some point. In fact, it happened to me just this morning. I thought to myself ‘yeah, it’s hair oil day’ and BAM. I put too much in, and now I look like Severus Snape. This also goes for not washing conditioner out properly in the shower.

How to avoid: Unless you are a girl who gets up at a normal time and can afford to re-wash your hair, you’re going to have to deal with the situation pronto. One option is to wear your hair in a tight bun while pretending it is raining outside. Another option is to douse your hair in dry shampoo. This actually works quite well and you will look relatively normal until you have time to wash your hair properly.

2. Clocking someone in the same dress

No matter how much of a nice person you are, seeing someone in the same dress as you is mortifying. Yes, you could do the bigger person thing of ‘hahahah haven’t we both got great style?!’, but inside you are likely to die a little bit/a lot. Unless you know the girl in question, you can’t really demand they leave and get changed. With this in mind, there are a few options available to you.

How to avoid: Sit scrunched up in your chair and cover your body with your handbag until the girl leaves. Alternatively, never buy clothes from the high street but if you do, make sure your customise with rhinestones. Failing that, just don’t go out anywhere.

3. Tripping over in public

For some reason, girls trip over in public more than boys do. And while tripping over after 20 jagerbombs is a bit more acceptable, falling on your face in daylight hours/completely sober is not. I mostly blame our tripping over tendencies on the fact we wear complicated clothing like maxi skirts and flatforms, which are definitely tricky things to navigate. And when you do trip over (it will happen one day), the best course of action is to grab the nearest person and laugh hysterically until they laugh with you to make it all ok.

How to avoid: Don’t leave the house.

4. Sneezing after applying mascara

This is one of my personal life troubles. Whether you are a hayfever sufferer, ill-time your perfume spraying or just having ticklish eyelids (errr…just me?), sneezing after doing your mascara is THE WORST THING EVER. If I have spent a load of time getting the rest of my face right, faffing about blending things and dabbing at stuff, the last thing I want to happen is a god damn sneeze to ruin it all. And it does ruin it all. Panda eyes, having to do strategic wiping and absolutely ruined eye makeup are just a few of what we have to deal with. Three words: not cool, nose.

How to avoid: Don’t look at bright lights, don’t spray perfume just after you have done your mascara and, please for the love of Pete, take your antihistamines.

5. Orange Face, white body (and vice versa)

For the fake tanners amongst us, this is a very real concern. Getting your face and body the same colour is surprisingly difficult and there has been many a night where I thought I looked bangin’, and it turns out I looked like a white faced ghost poo body.

How to avoid: Get a foundation that matches your tanned self. Alternatively, give up tanning. Being a Pale Gail is much more preferable.

6. Drunk lipstick application

We all know the situation. It’s a Saturday night, you’ve got a fierce dress on, you’re sipping on gin and juice Lambrini and life is generally brill. You slip off to the water closet to reapply your lipstick and after smearing some on, you stroll back into the club like you’re fluent in Swaghili. Unfortunately, you now look like a clown. And you don’t notice until you get tagged in pics the next morning.

How to avoid: Don’t wear lipstick when drinking. Ever. Lipgloss all the way, suckas.

7. Flapping fake eyelashes

See above. Instead of clown face, it’s the flappy eyelash scenario. If you want to look like a wonky faced fool or, god forbid, you look like you’re winking at miscellaneous strangers, then the flappy lash isn’t too much of an issue. However, it is an issue if you do mind.

How to avoid: Use lots and lots of glue. Bring glue out with you. If in doubt, rip your lashes off and roam eyelash free. It’s better than winking at people inadvertently.

8. Fringe separation

This one goes out to my fringed homegirls. Claire and I have both had full on fringes during our time on earth, and we can both tell you that they are the biggest faff known to man. If it’s not too long growing into your eyeballs it’s separating so you look like Peter Andre, Ben from A1 and Kim Jong Un all rolled into one. And I can tell you this my friends, this is not a look you want to be channelling. The 90s are not quite that back yet.

How to avoid: Hairspray your fringe. It doesn’t matter if you look like a Lego man. Just do it.

9. Dress stuck into pants

Another one of life’s classic woes. After nipping to the piddly diddly department, you accidentally get your dress/skirt stuck into your knickers. It is potentially one of the most embarrassing things to happen to us girls, and you have to hope you have a nice friend who will point out your bottom is on show. Alternatively, they will just laugh at you until you finally realise that you have been flashing everyone for approximately half an hour. It just depends what kind of mates you have.

How to avoid: Wear trousers. Or don’t wear pants, but if you go for the second option, you better hope there is no gusts of wind. Because you might get arrested.

10. Smudging nail varnish

Waiting for nails to dry or dipping into a bag of Doritos and hoping for the best…? I know which one I would chose (yes, obvs the Doritos). This is definitely another one of life’s woes, and I don’t really know why they haven’t created instant drying nail varnish for £1 yet. I will never wait long enough for my nails to dry and will always regret that I bothered to paint my nails at all. C’est tragique. Tres tres tragique. What is the point in life?

How to avoid: Be patient and actually wait for your nails to dry. Alternatively, glue on false nails. MUCH easier than the trauma of smudged nails.

SO ladies – agree, disagree? Let me know in the comments below!

And of course, this is completely meant to be a light hearted blog post, but if you are a fellow woman who is struggling with any form of terrible thing – here is a list of help lines and here is another that you might find useful :).

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While I don’t want to be too much of a Negative Nancy, there are few things in the world that annoy me more than too much enthusiasm (one being brown tshirts). Too much enthusiasm is not cool. Do you want people to think you are a raging lunatic that gets excited about nothing? No. I didn’t think so. That’s why I have created this handy list of things people are too enthusiastic about. In an ideal world, we would all sit down with a nice cup of tea and complain about the weather and how kids these days are all mad (have you SEEN the length of school skirts these days? I’m horrified by the underage vajajay on show).

Saying that, there are a few things that we are allowed to be excited about (I’m not a monster). These include:

• The miracle and wonderment that is childbirth.
• Buying new lipstick.
• A new outfit.
• Lord of the Rings.
• Chinese takeaways.

Apart from these, we should all be keeping our upper lips stiff and maintaining a face of absolute calm. That means there will be no putting your hands up for Detroit or any other city for that matter, and certainly no waving them around like you just don’t care (you should care). Without further ado, please stop being excited about:

Holidays

Yes, holidays are nice but lets be honest, they’re not something to get your knickers in a twist about. For a week or two of our lives we might be in the sun, we might have a super cool time drinking Pina Coladas and we might (if we can be arsed) see a few sights. But then, we have to come home and carry on with our boring lives in rubbish weather drinking whatever we can get our hands on to dull the loneliness (…too much?). The best thing about holidays is that we don’t have to do the things have to do for a week and it might be a bit hotter. Pleasant, I will grant you that. We might even meet some excellent people, but once we’re back in Merry England those excellent people will drift away. Just like your special memories of Zante or god forbid, Kavos.

Now I’m not saying you can’t be a little bit excited about your holiday. But please, for everyone’s sanity, don’t upload a screenshot of your holiday countdown. Don’t go on about how there are 8932 hours left until you can get your bikini on. And for the love of the Queen and all that is holy, do not under any circumstances get a “funny” tshirt printed (unless it’s ironic, obvs). And when you are actually on holiday, stop uploading pictures of your partially tanned legs on a sunbed. You look weird.

Relationships

Again, relationships are perfectly fine. I, myself, am in one that is ticking along quite nicely. But there is a difference between having a good relationship and shoving that relationship down everyone’s throat. A general rule of thumb is to pretend that your girlfriend/boyfriend doesn’t exist until someone asks you about it. Harsh? Not really. This may just be me, but I really don’t care about a stranger’s relationship. The ones that I do care about, I will take the time to ask about.

So, don’t go on about how much you love “your man” or “the boy” 500 times a day on Twitter. Don’t upload horrible pictures of you two snogging, or doing anything for that matter. PDA extends to the internet, my friends, and it alarms me to see people I thought were harmless looking like they have suddenly grown a siamese twin from their lips.

I also think there is no need to show off about your relationship. You never know who you might have on Facebook or Twitter, but you definitely probably have some single mates or ones that have recently broken up with the troll in their life. You don’t want to add to their distress by uploading a picture of your new Primark handbag that “omgggg the boy just bought me this, what a sweetie lol lol lol love you, you are the best blah blah blah bore off”. This goes for flowers, pictures of romantic ridiculous country walks and/or anything that could remotely look like bragging. Bragging is not cool.

Nights Out

Like any self-respecting half Brit, I enjoy a night out. Dancing around like a lunatic and sipping on cheap alcohol isn’t too horrible and a pleasant enough way of spending my Saturday night. What it is not however, is the best night of my life ever. Take a minute to think about what a night out really is. It is a bunch of people, often with miscellaneous bits of plastic stuck to their faces and/or hands, drinking a substance that makes them forget what they’re doing and/or fall over. Then they start moving like they’re having a mini-stroke and potentially start to molest strangers. Then, they stuff their faces with cheesy foods and feel absolutely horrible the next day. Something to get too enthusiastic about? No.

Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go out. Going out is great. But posting Facebook statuses about how it is going to be the best night ever and listening to songs like ‘I Gotta Feelin’ is just not ok. Quiet ambivalence is the way forward, and concentrating on just actually having a good night is probably a better use of your time.

Your Friends

Now you go too far, you ginger loon. But as I always say, NOT FAR ENOUGH. I like my friends a lot, they are wonderful people and they make me very happy and jolly. I’m sure that people who know them think that too. Which is why there is no need for me to go on and on about how great they are to everyone. It’s fine every now and then, but really…every single day? It’s annoying. You can’t like people that much. And as far as screen shotting “hilarious” conversations you’ve had with your pals, let’s avoid that.

Festivals and Gigs

Once again, festivals and gigs are something that I enjoy enormously. I even have a tattoo representing my love for Glastonbury. But similar to the ‘nights out’ section, they’re not going to be the best thing you ever do ever. They’re mega fun and you will have an excellent time. But going on about it more than necessary and counting down to your summer fezzie every day on social media makes me want to cry. Cuff me.

Over enthusiasm is just upsetting. I’m not knocking getting excited about things and enjoying them, but there is definitely a limit to how much you should go on about it. Go forth and enjoy life, just don’t bang on about it to the point where the majority of the population want to biff you. We are British for goodness sake, if we can’t be underwhelmed…what can we be?

I have two main hatreds in life: brown t-shirts and cheating boyfriends/girlfriends. As I have grown wise and old in my old age, I have noticed that more and more people in relationships are ending up in the tragic pool of being cheated on. This month’s Cosmo told me that 47% of men have cheated on their girlfriends, which is quite shocking really – IT’S PRACTICALLY HALF. But what about the murky waters of sexting*? For those of us who have been victims of stupid boys with equally stupid technology, there are always the doubts of ‘…well he didn’t physically do anything’ and ‘maybe it was only harmless’.

Well, I am here to put my foot down with a firm hand and say it most certainly is not harmless. Sexting might be new territory (though I firmly believe that some Victorian sleezes probably quilled dirty letters to scullery maids behind their wives’ backs) but at the end of the day, it can be just as hurtful.

Why do people sext in the first place?

I have thought long and hard about this one and have come up with a few reasons why boys (or girls, no sexism here!) feel the need to message other people while they are in a relationship.

1. For an ego boost: There’s nothing like a bit of attention from someone you find vaguely attractive to make you feel good about yourself. In theory, the person you’re in a relationship should be there to make you feel good. But for some people, that’s not enough. For some bizarre reason, being told that you are sexy by random boys or girls is a better way to boost your ego than by your girlfriend/boyfriend who loves you. It is a strange world we live in.
   
2. To sow the wild oats: This applies to boys mostly, but I think there is some subconscious evolutionary trigger in guys that make them want to make sure that they have lots of offspring. Whatever natural urges you have, laddies, remember: we are not animals. We have thumbs and the capability to learn the words to every Lady Gaga song ever made. Keep your wild oats for your woman only.
3. Because we can: Technology is great and I love Twitter with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. But it can be our own worst enemy too. Let’s be honest, physically cheating on someone is so much effort these days. You have to actually go out of the house, find somewhere to do the dirty deed AND get rid of the smell of unfamiliar perfume. Snore. Why bother when you can just hop on Facebook or iMessage and get rid of the evidence with a single click?
4. Out of boredom: This is one that is not very nice to accept…a relationship might just be on its last legs and that can drive people to stray. It’s not a valid excuse in the slightest and it’s still a cowardly thing to do, but it can be a knee-jerk response if things aren’t going well relationship-wise.
5. They are knobs with no knobs: Some people are just not very nice.

Is sexting really that bad?

My immediate response would usually be ‘yes, with bells on’ but it’s a bit more complicated than that I reckon. It’s easier to forgive a naughty message or text and easier to convince yourself that your significant other only has eyes for you really. But in my mind, if your boyfriend or girlfriend is looking/thinking/describing (ugh, get a grip) sleeping with somebody else, it’s a bit irrelevant if they actually do it or not.

1. It will turn you into a crazy person: No one wants to be the girl that has to dictate who her boyfriend sees or what he does. But at the end of the day, if he can’t be trusted to behave like a normal human being then it is his own fault if his girlfriend becomes a crazy paranoid stalker.
   
2. You will feel like crap: Nothing dents your self confidence like a boyfriend/girlfriend who has to find gratification through a phone or a laptop.
3. It’s a slippery slope: Whatever your boyf or girlf says, people who sext behind their partner’s back are definitely more likely to cheat physically.
4. It’s disrespectful: Relationships are about being bothered about the person you are with. If you are willing to risk hurting the person you should in theory care most about, then away with you. There is no place for you here.

What to do if your boyfriend/girlfriend is sexting.

Well, it’s really up to you. I’m a believer that you shouldn’t let what other people think influence your decisions too much. If you’re not bothered about it, then that’s fine. But if you are, have a long and hard think about whether it’s worth staying with him/her. It goes without saying that things are going to be MEGA different if you do, and you’ll have to work at things to make sure it’s all ok.

But also don’t worry about saving face – who cares if a few people think you are an idiot for staying with your sexting boyf or girlf? Second chances are worth it. BUT third chances are not. If they carry on being useless, then no matter how brilliant they are in other ways, they are the dregs of society and don’t deserve you.

And thus concludes my two cents on the matter. It’s always worth remembering that no matter how great a person can seem, if they’re treating you badly, then they shouldn’t have a place in your life. While it seems that every person ever treats sexting as an ok activity these days, there are certainly people out there who won’t tell a random strangers that they want to have sexual relations with them.

* I’ve used the word sexting, but this post isn’t just focused on whether your boyfriend or girlfriend has sent explicit messages. I think any sort of message that’s flirty or has sexual undertones OR is to someone they have no need to message (i.e. a random gal on Facebook at 4am) is definitely not ok. NOT OK GUYS.