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You and five other people everyone bitches about

EVERYONE loves to slag people off behind their back, but who are the most popular targets? Find out with this guide.

Boss

The easiest target for spiteful gossip, but a deserving one too. Who wouldn’t get mad at some jumped-up dickhead who orders you around all day and only makes up for it by bankrolling your existence? Sure, they have more experience and expertise in your line of work, but that’s besides the point. They’re a knobhead.

Partner

A partner is someone you should share everything with, except for how much you bitch about them the second they leave the room. New couples will grumble about everything from splitting a bill to their beloved’s opinion on a movie, whereas long-suffering other halves will zero in on trivial shit like the way they breathe or how often they blink.

Colleague

A co-worker is either an incompetent f**kwit who should be fired immediately, or they’re a pathetic corporate brown-noser who will do anything to get ahead. There is no middle ground. Annoying colleagues do provide lots of bitching fodder though, which brings people together way more successfully than any team-building exercise.

Family

Just because you’re genetically related to them doesn’t mean you have to be nice about your family. Chances are they’re a random assortment of weird personalities you wouldn’t otherwise choose to hang out with, which is why you only visit them over Christmas or when you need money. Sadly you will become more like them the older you get.

Dickhead friend

Everyone has that one friend who is a total dickhead and should have been ostracised years ago. Just because they put a fiver towards your birthday present once doesn’t mean they are alright really. They’re a dead weight you need to let go of ASAP. And if this is news to you, then you are the dickhead friend in question.

You

It’s not hard to see why people moan about you. From the way you dress to the sound of your voice and your half-baked political opinions, you’re a rich source of bitching material. Plus the way you speak ill of everyone around you is pretty off-putting. No wonder there are several WhatsApp groups which refer to you as ‘that twat’.

'The garden's a bit wild': six innocuous phrases that will totally shit on your weekend

READY for 48 blissful work-free hours, only for your mood to crash on realising the implications of the seemingly-innocent phrase you’ve just heard?

‘The garden’s a bit wild’

Tidying up the garden – making nature in all its mightiness nice and neat – means two hours weeding, a hour of mowing, another hour of strimming, and quite possibly trimming the f**king hedges. Then, exhausted from hours of physical labour, you’re greeted with ‘Hmm. I think we need to put some bulbs in.’

‘Remember we’ve got company’

Which means a full day of tidying, dusting, hoovering and generally pretending to live a life entirely other than your own. Why? You’re not junkies in a squat, so what’s the necessity of preparing a facade just because two friends who’ve known you for years are coming round?

‘My mother’s due a visit’

It has been, now you think about it, a blissful month since you saw your in-laws. It’s passed like a dream. Apart from on their side, where they claim it’s been a hellish month of isolation so you’re expected to drive 60 miles for an inedible meal with two retirees who hate you.

‘We’ve got that wedding next weekend’

A rollercoaster of disappointment: your heart lifts that it’s not this weekend. Then sinks when you realise it means you’ll be spending all day shopping for new clothes you’ll wear once and a wedding gift for people you hope never to see again.

‘Shame to waste the weather’

Your primitive equation of ‘it’s sunny’ equals ‘so we’ll spend the afternoon in the garden drinking’ is overruled by the pressing necessity to go somewhere where nature is apparently superior to immediately outside. There follows a long drive and a trudge round a beauty spot marred by every f**ker else.

‘The lounge is looking tatty’

‘Mmm,’ you reply, sailing into the trap with the caution of Admiral Ackbar. And now you’re in B&Q comparing paint shades called Melville, Santa Fe and Natural Hessian before the real hell of applying them to the skirting boards begins. You can’t wait until work on Monday.

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