Seven Struggles of a December Birthday

Do you know what, Love Actually isn’t all around and you can stick your Elf Yourself video up your bottom.

December birthdays are a little bit awful, being born within the Christmas month means you’re lost amongst the Christmas cheer and the ‘is it too early?’ discussion – by the way if your birthday is before Christmas then the answer is yes.

1. People are hesitant to go out. It’s your birthday so you’ll want to go out and spend money on some kind of fun. But then arrives the excuses; someone is doing their second Christmas; others overdid it on the mulled wine; your friends need to ‘save themselves’ to do Christmas properly; another let-down doesn’t want to go out for drinks, in preparation for their new years resolution, that they’ll soon fail when their lovely summer birthday arrives or it’s someones bloody work party. And my personal favourite: “I have no money, we spent so much on presents this year!” MY BIRTHDAY HAS BEEN ON THE SAME DAY EVERY YEAR, YOU WANKER. P.S  don’t you dare suggest going to Winter Wonderland on my birthday, bitch.

2. Everyone talks about Christmas whilst you’re trying to be excited for your birthday. Oh, you can’t wait for Christmas, can you? Don’t mind me whilst I tangle myself in these fairy-lights whilst bitterly giggling at the Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special.

3. Everyone always asks if you ‘mind’ having your birthday in December. Well I didn’t really get a choice but I lie anyway to make it clear that Christmas, New Years Eve and my birthday are three entirely separate events, that you should all be equally excited about – OKAY?

4. It’s bloody cold. Everyone is a bit ill and their summer-selves have hibernated into a cocoon of hot-chocolate and snotty tissues. If you go out clubbing you enter the antarctic after leaving and everyone’s energy is just generally lower. YAY, IT’S MY BIRTHDAY *sneeze, cough, cry.*

Five reasons why the Brangelina divorce is great

…not for the pair themselves but for nearly every other human tweeting a Jennifer Aniston meme.

Who knew Sept 20 was National Jennifer Aniston Meme Day? #brangelina #TeamJen pic.twitter.com/sH21D3PK7L

— Jennifer Gaonach (@JenGaonach) September 20, 2016

The ‘BrexPitt’ was announced on Tuesday Afternoon. The hugely admired couple had filed for divorce for reasons described by Jolie as “for the health of the family”. The marriage only lasted two years but everyone seems to be having a meltdown – because we all know Jolie and Pitt so well, right?

But no, the sadness of what simply is a woman divorcing a man, a few lessons can be learnt here.

And here’s why their break-up is great, to teach the following lessons:

1. Women, you can’t just be nice to girls in toilet bathrooms. One woman’s pain, is not another woman’s joy. Perfectly described by Elle. A large amount of the focus has been on Jennifer Aniston jumping for joy over the filed divorce – without her actually commenting at all may I add. This promotes female-to-female hate, women need to stick together, not encourage each other to have a giggle when their ex splits from their new wife, it’s not nice. I don’t dispute the memes are funny but there are lessons to be learnt in the bigger picture and promoting girl-on-girl hate is not one of them.

2. Destroying the ridiculous ‘relationship goals’, no one and especially Tumblr knows what their relationship was like, only Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt know the details of their married life. Hopefully the infamous Brangelina will show people that their couple aspirations are nothing like what they imagine. Aiming to be like another couple is ridiculous, everyone is different, therefore every couple is different. My ideal relationship would most probably be someone I can get horrendously drunk with, pretend I can dance then return home to watch a Louis Theroux documentary and eat 20 chicken nuggets. But someone else may wish to go and do crazy sports together, travel the world, make scrapbooks and mix-tapes together. Either way, people need to stop looking to couples in the public eye for ‘relationship goals’ and focus on what makes them, as a singular person, happy.

I blame Richard Curtis

Tim and Mary in the wonderful Romantic-Comedy bubble, courtesy of Richard Curtis’ About Time (via giphy)

Richard Curtis is guilty of feeding our romantic-comedy addictions (the one who told you Love Actually is all around). But why do we love this genre so much?

Romantic-comedies are arguably the best sub-genre known to any person willing to admit they don’t still smirk at Bridget Jones’ massive pants or fall weak at the knees for Matthew McConaughey’s undeniable charm.

From pages to visuals. Most romantic novels later appear as successful films, including: Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009), One Day (2011) and Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008).  The pages come to life and it’s easier to scoff an entire bag of popcorn when your hands aren’t firmly stuck to your book or your tablet. Despite feeling a little hostile at the fact that the movie version may have missed out a beautiful piece of dialogue, there’s something wonderful about knowing all the fine details whilst watching the movie version. Your film buddy may not know all the thoughts that went on in her head the moment before she kissed him or the exact way he looks into her eyes, but you do.