Five friends your child will bring home from school, and how you'll loathe them

HAS your child just started a new school? Here are five types of friends they’ll bring home that you’ll have to tolerate:

The one with pushy parents

She’s spoiled rotten with new gadgets, long-haul holidays, and a packed social calendar. Her rich parents bought a second home in the school’s catchment area, change their cars every six months, and obviously judge your small semi when they come to pick her up. Soon, your kid will be spending the majority of their time at her house because she’s got a swimming pool.

The nerdy one

He’s always waffling on about subjects even you know f**k all about, like Boolean logic, instead of getting covered in mud with the other kids. He’ll be bullied relentlessly through school, but will have the last laugh by growing up to become a millionaire tech entrepreneur while everyone else struggles in the gig economy.

The sporty one

After winning every event at sports day for three years in a row, she’ll piss everyone off further by being excused from most academic lessons so she can do extra training and get into Loughborough University on a sports scholarship. She’ll win an Olympic bronze, but because she was so dull, none of her schoolmates will remember her.

The weird one

One boy in your child’s new friendship group is over six feet tall, wears size 14 shoes, grows facial hair at an alarming rate, has a deep voice and reeks of BO. What’s unusual about that, you ask. Well, he’s only 13 years old and he already has a more impressive beard than you.

The one you’re a bit scared of

Your middle-class snobbishness will come out when your child shows up with a lad you consider to be ‘bad’. He’s swears, steals from newsagents and trespasses on the railway line. He will train as a plumber, make a ton of cash and retire early while your kid is still figuring out what to do with their degree in Art History.

When you're being dumped: the five worst times to run into your ex

HAVING a bad day? It’ll get even worse if you run into your ex. For maximum damage, cross paths with them on these occasions:

When they’re on a hot date

When it comes to ex partners, ignorance is bliss. You’re free to imagine they’re pining after you, maybe even plucking up the courage to ask for you back. This illusion will be shattered when you bump into them holding hands with a perfect ten and laughing their head off. Stay at home forever to avoid this tragedy.

When you’re getting dumped

Even if the person chucking you is saying and doing all the right things, getting dumped is always going to hurt. Running into your ex during this heartbreaking ordeal would rub salt into the wound, not least because they’d probably say something inappropriate like ‘Trouble in paradise?’ then give the person dumping you pointers.

In a pharmacy

If you’ve popped into a pharmacy to pick up something embarrassing like hemorrhoid ointment, the last thing you’ll want to see is your ex leaving with a bumper pack of condoms and a big grin on their face. Skulk in the shampoo aisle until they’ve gone and you can run home in tears.

On a blind date

You’ve scrubbed up, prepared your least creepy chat up lines, and now you’re at the bar nervously waiting for your blind date to walk through the doors. It would be unfortunate if your ex was having dinner in the same place and spent the evening watching and laughing as you struggled through an increasingly awkward evening with someone patently wrong for you.

Any waking hour

Even if you’ve just won the lottery and hooked up with an underwear model, there’s never a good time to run into your ex. You’ll be reminded of all those good times you had together, like when you went a whole morning without arguing. Try emigrating to a different hemisphere to dodge them for good.