The Waterfront’s resident Agony Aunt, Rhydian Morris, answers your burning questions!
Dear Agony Aunt,
My housemate keeps leaving passive aggresive notes throughout the house and it’s becoming really annoying and infuriating. She never says anything in person but keeps leaving notes for the most petty reasons. The recent one was due to leaving a mug unwashed overnight! A MUG! It’s becoming impossible to deal with, as you can’t possibly live up to her ridiculous standards.
Ah we have all had that one housemate in uni who is incapable of dealing with house conflict in normal healthy ways. Passive aggresiveness is one of the most annoying traits in other people, atleast with aggression you know what’s coming. I’ve been in your situation before and its truly awful to constantly feel on edge in your own flat, as if you have to constantly monitor your behaviour so the next note doesn’t appear.
Now there are really two ways to approach this, the mature responsible way and the fun immature way. Whichever way you choose depends on how much you like them in spite of their note writing skills. Now the mature way would be to attempt to enagage with the person constructively about how their behaviour is incredibly upsetting for the rest of the house. Make sure to have an honest dialogue about what they expect and what your prepared to do to not annoy them. Obviously, not waking up everyone after a night out at 3am is reasonable adjustment, but demanding a mug be cleaned up immediately is probably not (Though this would depend on how gross your mug was!).
Now the immature way would be to deliberately escalate the situation by doing things you know would lead to notes or to make your own notes yourself. You can form an entire bond with this person through the medium of passive aggresive insults! Obviously the waterfront and myself are in no way culpable if you choose to take this advice!
Dear Agony Aunt,
I keep thinking about calling my ex HELP!
Okay so this question doesn’t really give a ton of information. Why are they your ex? Did you break up with them or did they break up with you? Did one of you cheat on the other? Was it a good or bad relationship? The answer to the last one is probably bad due to the all caps HELP.
Now getting back with an ex is usually never a good idea, there is usually a good reason the person is your ex and not your current boyfriend/girlfriend. Getting back with your ex usually leads to the exact same situation happening. Breaking up for the same reason you broke up in the first place.
So I can pretty much give the advice of not resorting to calling your ex, though calling is probably alot more preferable to sending a drunk text or message. Atleast with the former there is no physical evidence of how embarrasing the conversation was.
Now the best way to not phone an ex is to make sure your phone and the bottle of wine never occupy the same room together. If your planning on heading out make sure to leave the phone at home, or better yet just delete their number! Problem solved.
Or if you like taking risks, phone them and maybe you will be one of the lucky people that gets back with your ex and it’s a perfect relationship. Though you’d be braver than me!
* DISCLAIMER: We’d like to state that the advice above is completely made up and should not be taken seriously. For professional advice and support, contact the Student Union advice centre.
