It’s Friday so Stefano puts on Radio 4, sits down on the sofa with his floral M&S dressing gown and makes a nice cup of tea ready to provide fun solutions to YOUR problems. He’s taken on the role of our local agony aunt and today replies to questions you’ve sent him over the last seven days. Email your problems (in the strictest confidence) to: [email protected]

THE PROBLEM

Hey tiaa agonyy

Right so I’m having a quarter life crisis, I am surrounded by people getting married, engaged, in full on relationships and popping out babies…

The problem... I’m a fun loving semi alcoholic (full on alcoholic, lets not kid ourselves) who cant be asked with small talk, wouldn't recognise a flirt even if it slapped me on the face like a wet fish, unemployed and still stretching the last few pounds of the grant for a bottle of wine to get me through this crisis.

Not sure whether to keep hoeing it up or to desperately seek some sort of mutual partner and sort my life out.

Enplan tioo que agoo?

G, 22

THE SOLUTION

Hey G,

Sometimes (or should I say, most of the time) when I receive these things I find I’m in the same predicament. I sometimes feel I may not be the best person to ask for advice from, given I’m not a seventy year old lady, with a whole life to have learnt how to deal with everyday problems. But I try my best, I like helping out and I like giving advice if I truly believe it to be valid.

I’m not going to lie, I’m also experiencing the same things you are. I’m beyond a quarter life, at almost twenty seven, and I’m seeing people my age, your age and even younger with everything seemingly figured out, and here I am, spending three evenings a week playing music with people older than I am, some that could be my dad, with their shit sorted out; or watching videos on YouTube until 2am every night. Even the people I know that don’t have everything figured out look like they’re doing well and on the way to getting things sorted out.

But here’s the thing: everybody likes to have fun. It’s Thursday night and I’ve just got home a while ago from Thursday afternoon drinks with some friends. We’ve made it a thing; we meet up after work on Thursdays (because not everybody can agree on plans on weekends), have a few pints and then go home as the sun’s setting. It’s great. Then there’s nothing I enjoy more than going out on a Friday or Saturday, and if there’s nothing to do, or nobody wants to do anything I’ll very happily stay at home and have a couple of drinks and listen to music and browse the web. I’m going to be honest, not without having a little sulk beforehand, because why the hell don’t people want to see other people on the weekend after seeing the same people all week, and working hard at work? Because it’s not really being an alcoholic unless you’re waking up and instantly wrapping your lips around the neck of a bottle of Glenn’s Vodka. Despite what people tell you having a drink or two on a weekday is OK, sitting down after a long day to sip on something doesn’t make you an alcoholic. Going all out out on a Friday night is fine. Everybody does it and pretends they don’t love it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. Make the most of your youth, you’ll have time to watch a movie and be in bed by ten when you’re fifty.

Grant you say? Make the most of your remaining time in University. Don’t want to sound like an idiot, because my job entails sitting at a desk all day, but waking up is hard to do (especially if you can’t stay off YouTube the night before). My advice for the unemployed is what I told myself for the five or six months I was unemployed: keep yourself busy. When I finished University in the summer of 2012 I thought to myself: “I’ll take a couple months off to gain strength for the job search”, then that extended to a little more than it really should’ve, but the most important thing, and what kept me focussed and going was that I was waking up at a reasonable time every day and leaving the house. I would go into town and have a walk-about, take some photos, grab a coffee and then arrange to meet friends after they finished work. If you stay at home all day it’ll make you feel like dirt, for real. And the best thing about being unemployed? You have a lot of time to work on developing yourself, whether it’s learning something you’ve always wanted to learn but haven’t had time at uni, or organising your bookshelf, or learning how to make a few useful cocktails, or I don’t know. My point is that now I almost always wish I had a couple more hours a day for things I could’ve really done when I didn’t have a job. Then on weekends I’m so tired of constantly trying to find time to do things and from going out that I do nothing. Which mind you, is also OK. It’s OK to not do anything. It’s OK to watch a whole season of a show on Netflix between Saturday and Sunday.

Anyway, you catch my drift, I hope.

About the flirting, the small talk and the fish all I’ve got to say is that I’m pretty clueless about the first, I sometimes panic at the second and would rather sometimes be in total silence (like when I’m eating and somebody’s small talking) and I’ve never been slapped on the face by a fish but I can imagine if it’s a little stinky it might not be the most pleasant of experiences. Let’s try and make sure that doesn’t happen!

Just learn to listen, and learn more about the people around you, and analyse cues and clues (better than fish), don’t underestimate yourself, have all the fun you want to have (within legal and moral confines) and just don’t let yourself down. Be you.

Hope that helps, get back in touch if anything.

Snoop Blogg x