Eating, sleeping, and breathing: five things you're doing wrong according to your partner

YOU naively imagine you mastered the basic functions of life as a child, but in the view of your live-in partner you’re wrong. These issues must be addressed:

Eating

Whether it’s too loud, too fast or in an illogical order, the method by which you put basic nutrients in your mouth just isn’t cutting it. Also you hold a fork like a baby and slurp your drink like a gelatinous creature from the depths of the ocean.

Watching TV

Did you look at your phone for a second during the show? Or do you not automatically put the subtitles on because you witlessly thought sound was audible? Well, then you’ve failed at the most basic of relaxing pastimes. Your partner’s enjoyment of Celebrity Gogglebox has been ruined forever by your viewing ineptitude.

Using the toilet

The side the toilet paper should hang is an issue that has divided households for centuries, and the way you’ve chosen is wrong. Also, you’re not placing the seat correctly and going at times they really don’t think should be necessary. Sort it out. Once you’ve apologised.

Sleeping

What you believe is like a cosy, comfortable sleeping position is viewed as an insult to the very art of sleeping by your partner. They shudder at your choice in pillows and treat the way you pull the duvet up to your chin as a war crime. You sleep their way or not at all.

Breathing

You breathe all day every day. So why can’t you breathe in a pleasant, understated way, rather than sounding like a snorting, snuffling, wildebeest has entered the room? Your smallest exhalation might as well be an audition to be the big bad wolf. Could you think about maybe stopping altogether?

The seven things you hate about your mate from school you can't dump

DO you have an unbreakable bond of friendship with a mate from school you can’t stand? This is how he’ll plague you until your dying day:

He’s retained an encyclopaedic knowledge of school events

It’s a laugh to reminisce about oddball teachers with both sweat and anger management problems. Spending all night being told about Iain Bryce’s parents moving to Liverpool in 1985 or Sally Pearce taking the highly unusual step of having two kids, less so.

He still knows other twats from school

You never know the other person from school, who you barely remember and your mate was never particularly pally with, is going to be there until you arrive at the pub. And it’s a universal law that this person has become a frighteningly boring arsehole who bangs on for 90 minutes about their kids being good at hockey.

He reminds you of doomed teenage romances

Teenage crushes are embarrassing, unrequited love, unlistened-to mixtapes and unbearable poetry. You don’t need a friend reminding you that ‘you used to follow Rachel Smith round like a lovesick puppy. They’d call it stalking now. She saw you in Tesco last year and hid behind a postbox.’

He has strangely reactionary views

In the decades since school you did drugs and learned about the world. Your mate, by contrast, developed workplace-friendly conservative opinions. Labour? They’ll bankrupt the country. Transsexuals? Shouldn’t teach it to kiddies. All you can fathom is it’s an evolutionary thing to fit in with an office of lower-middle-class neo-Nazis.

He’s still got a creepy interest in fit teachers

You did your share of wanking over hot biology teacher Miss Dawes, but dredging her up 30 years later is weird. Does a fantasy from decades ago count for more than the actual relationships your mate has had? Apparently yes. And what of the lovely Miss Dawes? She’ll be old now, possibly dead. So granny porn at best and necrophilia at worst.

He sadistically brings up your past ambitions

Did you have a improbable ambition like going to film school or writing novels? Your mate revels in the hilarity of this as if you’d had an entirely serious plan to become Batman. Yes, it’s great nobody escapes the pit of job disappointment and boredom. Thanks for keeping me grounded, Dave.

He expects you to be always on call

You must always be available to entertain him if he’s at a loose end. Don’t fight it. Grit your teeth and spend an evening talking about when Dale Anderson fainted during cross-country running. Did you hear he’s moved three towns over now? Never would have expected that.