Women and men. But mainly women.

Well, they do say write about what you know...

This isn't going to be one of those concise, to-the-point blog posts. (You know, 'cause I write those all the time.) I've got a couple of small, half-baked ideas knocking around up here (you can't see, but I'm gesturing at my head), but mainly I just like putting thoughts down on paper. Or screen. It's with a certain amount of anxiousness that I draft these kinds of posts, because they're inevitably more personal. And those of you who know me, erm, personally, will be joining the dots and going "Yeah, I know what that's about". Or, "Yep, well, that's a reference to me. Good".

It's just been a long three days, that's all. Without going into too much detail, I really, really can't handle arguing with certain people. My family, that's fine. We shout and storm at each other and it's forgotten within a few hours. But I can deal with that, because your family have to still love you. That's not a connection you can break that easily. Friends and anyone closer than that, I can't. It scares me; it makes me feel guilty and restless and like a kicked Bambi. And tearful. I cry at everything anyway; the little man in control of my tear ducts has quite the itchy trigger-finger - but when faced with the threat of fucking things up between me and someone whose good books I'd quite like to stay in, I'm like a human water feature. Charlie Dimmock could put me in your garden and I'd just spout away.

It's probably just a woman thing, to a point. Catch me at the wrong time and I'll be weeping at puppies, small animals and the "It's not all doom and gloom" bit at the end of "Russell Howard's Good News" (gets me every time). If a girl is being ratty, boys sometimes think it's funny to say "Oooh, is it someone's time of the month?" If this ever happens to me, I'm going to say "Boy, you have no idea." I don't think I'm selling out the sisterhood to say, yes, we are mental (adding "sometimes" is optional), and it's often to do with pesky hormone gremlins running riot in our brains turning us into arational, stroppy, tearful little monsters.

Sometimes, however, I've been forced to contemplate the possibility that it's not hormones, it is in fact my personality.

So yeah. On the one hand, I know that stupid rows are going to happen from time to time (I should know this by now, having had my parents.) I wish I could be more carefree when throwing strops, and not constantly be second-guessing myself and thinking, "Am I justified in feeling like this? Am I being reasonable?" I admire people who, when they're upset, just come out with it, throw a bit of a shit fit and move on. I'm hoping that by, say, the end of my twenties, I'll have learned to not feel guilty for having feelings. I can't say progess is going to be swift.

On lighter notes, this week, I've gone back to 'Girls', HBO's sitcom du jour. I think it hits some kind of stride in its third episode, certainly in terms of humour - though it is still only funny in a "smile knowingly" sort of way.

This episode (S1 E3: All Adventurous Women Do) also happened to feature what I'd like to call "the least sexy line ever delivered that was meant to be sexy". During an awkward encounter between Marnie (the slightly uptight one) and some artist guy, he tells her, "the first time I fuck you, I might scare you a little, because I'm a man and I know how to do things". On watching it, I had to rewind to hear it again, going "Did he really just say that?" Good GOD. I'm sure the correct reaction to this would be, "I really hope you're not going to scare me, because I don't tend to have sex with men that scare me. I'm glad you know how to do things though, that's always nice, so could we perhaps downgrade this 'scaring' nonsense to 'pleasant nervousness'?"

 Or even, "Mate, you've scared me enough with that sentence right there, I don't need to know what else you're capable of," while backing away, then turning and breaking into a run.

It seems to work on Marnie though; she has to run to the ladies' room to spend some time by herself, if you know what I mean.

And so to take it back to a serious note, you'd have to have been hiding in your shed all week to have missed the desperately sad Savita Halappanavar case making the headlines. Yes, it made me cry (shocker). Briefly: Savita Halappanavar was taken to University Hospital Galway, 17 weeks pregnant but starting to miscarry. Due to legislation, doctors were unable to do anything while the foetus still had a heartbeat - abortion being essentially illegal in Ireland. Savita reportedly asked repeatedly for doctors to remove the already-dying foetus, but nothing was done. She contracted an infection and died of septicaemia and E.Coli about a week after initially presenting at the hospital.

I'll say that important bit again: the already-dying foetus.

I know the doctors were bound by the legislation of their country; I am well-aware of that fact. But surely, as a doctor, when you spend so much time wading in the murky waters between life and death, you are well-acquainted with asking yourself, "Are we doing the right thing?"

The best thing that can happen now is, obviously, a change in the legislation regarding abortion. As someone cleverer than me pointed out, if you let a woman die for the sake of her already-dying unborn child, you probably need to ask yourself how "pro-life" you actually are. And yes, there needs to be carefully-examined, extensively-considered laws where abortion is concerned. No-one in their right minds would dispute that. But abortion is a medical issue, primarily. The priority should be the physical and mental health of the mother, and then of the child. And once those things are straight, then we can talk beliefs. But not before.

To lighten things up once more, in Friday's Times, there was a piece headlined "Why Bella from Twilight is the new feminist icon". 

I'd link you, but the article is hiding behind a paywall ('cause the Murdochs need all the money they can get, right?). Anyway, the title of the piece was on the front page, and it caught my eye, and prompted me to 1) say quietly, but clearly "What the FUCK?" in Waitrose, 2) hope desperately that it was an ironic piece, and 3) spend £1 on the paper. Fortunately, Caitlin Moran has a two-page feature in Friday's Times, so it wasn't a total waste of my money.

It wasn't an ironic piece. Apparently, because Bella is all glammed up when she's a vampire (does that make her a glampire?), and gets a bit ass-kicky, she qualifies as a feminist role model for our tweenage, Twi-hard sisters. What, after she's married Edward so he feels better about having sex with her and upon getting knocked up, literally dies so her vampire-human hybrid child can live? Righty-ho.

I think I need to chill out after all that. I'm going to listen to this in order to do so:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8OgWPcNA6o

If you haven't seen the new Bond film, look away now.

After waiting for what felt like ages, and what was actually a few days, on Wednesday, I saw the new Bond film. And if you've seen it, I'm not going to be telling you anything you don't know when I say it was cool, funny, dark, hot (Daniel Craig rocking the country casuals look in Scotland? Oh yes please. You work that Barbour jacket), and had possibly one of the best film villains since Heath Ledger's Joker. Javier Bardem, you hero. Oh, and Q is quite frankly adorable. I know that's an adjective the boys will be shuddering at, but he just is. 

A couple of days later, an article by Giles Coren caught my eye. Turned down by The Times, he felt so strongly about the piece that he got his wife to post it on her own blog. I'm giving you the link, in case you're, you know, really bored. (And as you're here, what other assumption am I supposed to make?)

I'm all for a bit of quibbling over whether something is sexist or not. I'm all for strong female characters in films and books, and whatnot. And I don't really know what people think of Giles Coren - though a former university lecturer did call him a twat during a seminar on language in the media. But I have to disagree with him on this one. Giles, I'm sorry, I do.

Yes, you're right - the first girl does meet a nasty end. But a) it's no good berating Bond for being "smug" and "smart-arse" - he's Bond, it's what he does; and b) I would say it's a bit much to say she shows no sign of being interested in him. They seemed to be eye-fucking the living daylights out of each other for at least a little while. The fact that she's killed so thoughtlessly is there to showcase the villain's unhingedness (totally a real word), not take a sweeping anti-women stance.

It's also true that M dies. We can take this as a statement about how the entire franchise views women as disposable background creatures - or we can be sensible, and say "Well, we've had the same M for ages, maybe it's time for a shake-up. And who knows? Maybe Judi Dench wants to put her feet up for a bit". Furthermore, killing a key character in a film or TV series gives that actor a significant responsibility - I'm not sure it's that easy to die convincingly and movingly on camera, unless you're the dog in Marley and Me.

As to the Miss Moneypenny thing, well, yes, but does anyone want to go back through Ian Fleming's entire body of work and re-write it from a feminist perspective? Admittedly, saying "Well, chill out Coren, it's just how Bond is" isn't exactly good debating technique, but it's not a documentary. I'd put good money on MI6 having a strict equal opportunities policy. The Bond franchise isn't claiming to make deep and meaningful gender-political statements. You want to start taking issue with sexism in films/TV programmes/video games, go ahead. There are plenty of opportunities out there.

Feminism's been having a moment over the last year or so, I think. It's realised how to get everyone involved - it's getting a bit cooler, and more relevant. Here in the UK, we have Caitlin Moran spilling the gory details on womanhood and just generally being awesome, and over in the US, we have Lena Dunham writing, directing and starring in "Girls" - the sitcom that's not afraid to say that your early twenties are often a bit shit and, you know, not exactly Friends. (I'm still undecided on it though - I had such high hopes for it but so far, I think the weakest character has been Dunham's Hannah. She's just a little bit too passive. Time will tell, I guess.)
Tina Fey is having wonderful moments like this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/26/lena-dunham-tina-fey-election-2012

So maybe Mr Coren is getting on the bandwagon. Bigging up women is what all the cool kids are doing now, so maybe he's trying to get in there. But he's missing the point. Or picking the wrong battle. I also have to add, while I remember, this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Tx7TpLuLs

Call me crazy, but I'm fairly sure that 0.09-0.16 is in there for the girls and the gay guys.

Yes, Bond might be a bit sexist from time to time, but the first Bond novel was written in 1952. That kind of thing was still OK then. Say the word "feminism" to the average kid on the street and they're still probably going to think of boring, humourless, man-hating women. A lot of people still roll their eyes and go "Not this shit again" when the subject of feminism comes up. And part of the reason people do that is because of this nitpicky kind of behaviour. So, with all due respect to Giles Coren, he should back off for a bit. When we want his help, we'll ask. We're allowed to fight our own battles now, has no-one told him?

Just one for you tonight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKQGedVC73Y

Team Strictly...

...and whatever else I need to get off my chest. Such as:

1) It's going to be really freaking embarrassing if I've failed my dissertation;
2) Does anyone else's family cause them terrific amounts of stomach-clenching guilt?
3) I don't want to go back to work tomorrow; I want to be back in Spain, drinking all the beer and eating all the chorizo (that's no euphemism, by the way).
4) Why are my 16-year-old brother and 12-year-old sister both taking their laptops on holiday to Dubai with them? Why?!

OK, that's that over with, now to this...

For the first time in four years, I'm spending autumn at home in Sussex. This, coupled with having a job that requires a wake-up time of 5.50am, means that to my disappointment, I've become a lot less discriminatory in what I watch on TV. Which is, admittedly, a bit rich coming from someone who has no problem saying she enjoys Made in Chelsea - something the Boy felt the need to let slip at the pub the other night. A friend genuinely spluttered into his pint. We did all agree, however, that "well, at least it's not TOWIE".

Like all good Freudians, for my worsening taste in television, I blame my mother.

Let me explain. Mum's an early bird. She's in her dressing gown by 7pm, in bed by 9.30 at the latest and up at half 6 in the morning. She doesn't really do 'relaxed'. She's had one lie-in in the last twelve years. It was quite recently; I remember it well. I was genuinely concerned that she was gravely ill when I found her in bed around mid-morning. It's going to go down in family legend as "Remember that time Mum had a lie-in?" Right there with the mayonnaise-on-the-rhubarb thing. My gran took the wrong tub out of the fridge after a Sunday roast one time. Why we didn't stop her before a dollop had landed on someone's portion of crumble is anyone's guess. Where were we? Oh yes.

So yeah, it's Mum's fault. When it gets to about half-7 in the evening, and the dinner things are in the dishwasher and the table is set for breakfast (I kid you not), Mum settles down with the newspapers and mostly, some God-awful TV. She even enjoys The One Show.

Thanks to her, I've recently got quite into Holby City. And I can see why people get hysterical over Downton (that was pretty emotional when Whatsherface died, wasn't it? Good grief, is it always like that?) And I am absolutely, vehemently, definitely anti-X Factor - and therefore, Team Strictly all the way.

Note: while I am aware that Simon Cowell no longer appears regularly on X Factor, he is the target of at least some of my rant because he owns Syco, which produces the show. And I like to think of him as some evil Dracula/puppet-master.

It's probably not news to anyone that I'm anti-X Factor, actually. I've always been very much in my own world, musically-speaking. When my classmates were into Britney and Billie (Piper), I was digging out my mum's Celine Dion records. Yes, records. When the world calls for Adele, I say, "Right, enough, I'm off to find Thea Gilmore". You say Mumford and Sons, I say The Decemberists. You say Taylor Swift, I say Michelle Branch. It's the just the way it is. When I came in to find my housemate watching the Brits last year, the first thing she said was, "there was this weird girl with an acoustic guitar, you'd like her". She meant Laura Marling.

It's a question of authenticity, I suppose, and there is nothing authentic about The X Factor. No-one can argue that it's about the music. They can try, but they will be shouted down.

 Yes, if you want fakery and glitter, Strictly delivers in that, in spades. But Strictly is upfront about it. The dresses, the make-up, the razzle-dazzle - that's the whole point of Strictly. It's panto - it knows that it's a glorious, rollicking-good-fun panto that lasts from October to (fittingly for this analogy) Christmas. What's more, SCD is harmless.

 And harmless is precisely what the X Factor isn't, to my mind. During a Mock The Week appearance a few years back, Lauren Laverne came out with a brilliant line about how Simon Cowell had "slit the cultural throat of Britain and was drinking its still-warm blood". They say that Brits have a habit of slagging successful people, and yes, Simon Cowell has been a tremendously successful businessman. But I don't envy him his success, or his money. In fact, if I'd made my money the way he has, I'd feel very uneasy about the bottom line of my bank statements.

There's as much of the pantomime in X Factor as there is in old Strickers, but with XF it's (a bit) subtler. Villains have been played by Katie Waissel, Jedward (kind of - or are they more jesters?), maybe Rylan this year, I don't really know. Prince Charming has been played by Matt Cardle and all of the One Direction boys, to name a few. The judges are, for the most part, the Fairy Godmothers of the piece. And the ghosts whose chains rattle and clank in the wings, they're the harder-to-pin-down, but definitely more talented kids, like that Aiden chap, and Lucy... Lucy Jones? Yeah, her.

 I want to see the acts playing shitty pub gigs, to an audience of 8 (one of which would be the pub's resident elderly Labrador). I want to see the contestants locked in rooms, alone, with either a piano or an acoustic guitar, and not let out until they'd written one complete song. And if there was so much as a whiff of cliche, anywhere in the lyrics, they'd be battered over the head with a copy of this and promptly sent home. And all this before the live shows. That would sort the Waissels from the Rebecca Fergusons, wouldn't it?

The people who complain that Strictly is just a bunch of has-beens trying to have one last stab at fame are missing the point. I don't think I've ever seen a celebrity taking part in Strictly not bloody loving it. When they show the footage of the training, the famous person is always gushing about how hard it is, but how much fun. Strictly seems to project this sense of fun - even Craig has a wry glint in his eye when he's dishing out criticisms harsher than a Russian winter. X Factor just worries me. A lot of people - boys, mainly; do you guys just enjoy other people's misfortune? - admit to not minding the audition stages, because the woefully untalented and deluded are there to be laughed at. I cannot watch those shows; I just can't put myself through it. Watching the talented ones make their way through to the live shows makes me just as uneasy, in a way - the urge to shout at the television, "Retain your musical integrity! You do know that you won't have any control over your career if you persist in this? They will make you into who they want you to be!" rings in my ears.

Talent shows have been around as long as television, and watching other people put themselves through things we wouldn't put ourselves through will continue to be, you know, a thing. But I can't help grinning when I see that SCD is beating X Factor in the viewing figures battle. Frankly, anything that slows Simon Cowell down, even a little, makes me smile.

I'm going to stop, 'cause this is getting a bit wordy, even for me.

Being on holiday meant that I was able to reacquaint myself with the long-forgotten activity of reading for fun, and I can highly recommend:

1) David Mitchell's autobiography, Back Story - it's so very him (shocker, I know), and a great read from a funny, articulate man. The chapter on Victoria Coren may have jerked a tear or two - it's everything I've ever wanted to say about love but, well, haven't bothered to.
2) The Crimson Petal and The White, Michael Faber - like Dickens, with all the descriptions of its London setting. You really feel the grime and the grease, the damp and the chill. But this ain't no Great Expectations. This is darker, and raunchier - and for an 800-page tome, it zips along nicely.

A double whammy of musical deliciousness for you tonight:

This:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvCBSSwgtg4


And this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd90W09MuVU

Why I don't slag off National Rail...

...it's mainly because I'm one of those people who a) works in the middle-of-sodding-nowhere-ville, and b) is feeble enough to not be able to drive. (I tried, for a long time, but kept being beaten by the fear of the disasters that can occur when one is travelling at high speeds in a metal box. I think there's something wrong with my brain.)

The job I have, if I'm honest, is far more hassle than it's worth. Rail fares are jumping up, I spend over three hours on a train most days, and the job itself makes my brain melt with its lack of creativity. After doing the Sodding Masters (to give its technical term), I was happy to rest on my academic laurels and earn some money by reading bills, insurance policies and the odd textbook for hours on end. The only good thing I can say about it now is it keeps me from having to sign on for Jobseeker's Allowance. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just feel it's better to stay employed if the work is there. And it gives me something to do and, more accurately, something to complain about.

Knackering though the commute is - and it really is* - once I'm on that train, I really don't mind it. I get uninterrupted time with my iPod/a book/my own thoughts. I can people-watch, people-judge, and people-crush to my heart's content.

*When you're a kid, you imagine adulthood to involve eating Smarties for breakfast, staying up late every single night and never having to do Maths homework. Turns out it's just "get up hideously early, spend hours on a train - often with morons - do a job that both bores and frustrates you (also often with morons), spend hours on a train, eat dinner, sleep". On repeat.

I've said before that I fall in lust regularly whilst travelling on trains - and I've found that I'm pretty open-minded about who I lust after. Men, women, anyone's fair game. Recent train-crushes have included the geek-chic, suited and bespectacled chap with whom I shared a smile, once, when we both jumped at Boris Johnson's "today's the day, folks!" Olympic message as it boomed out across the station. This guy looked like Francis from Made in Chelsea, if that helps. He doesn't get the 08.13 to Caterham anymore, which is a shame.

Then there was the glamourous woman who looked like Rosamund Pike (like this), and was dressed immaculately in a navy maxi dress with a butterfly print and a cream mac. And the nice, friendly conductor who was sweet in a David Miliband sort of way, but who lost points for saying "that's a long way" when I bought a ticket from Littlehaven to Uckfield. Don't I bloody know it, sunshine. The impeccably-dressed guy I saw for 2.7 seconds this morning - shirt, jumper, jeans, Converse, long wool coat, stubble and untidy hair. The pouty blonde girl with the amazing eyelashes, who looks like she has moody tendencies and maybe a useless boyfriend she has to keep tabs on (she's always on her phone).

Then there's the rare,  but warm-and-fuzzy "aww!" moments. Like the tiny little black girl who wears a stiff school uniform topped with a red beret. All I see when she walks down the platform, escorted by her mother, is huge brown eyes and a little hat. Too cute. And the guy I saw a couple of weeks back, who looked kind of thuggish but was clearly besotted with the well-behaved Staffie that sat at his feet, eyeing up the pigeons.

Sure, there are people that annoy the living daylights out of me (this wouldn't be me if it was all warm-and-fuzzy and puppies 'n' rainbows). The girl in the paint-splattered jeans who knocked into everyone today, and who positively reeked of weed. The couple who look "alternative" and are all cute and publicly affectionate. I don't care how in love you are, 8am is too early for that shit. And the girl just looks like someone who would describe themselves as "quirky", and the boy seems pretty whipped. (I'm really getting my bitch on tonight. Eek.) The business types who look important as they hash out Powerpoint presentations on their MacBooks and talk in infuriating, meaningless jargon. Please. Speak. Properly. Or I'll re-brand you.

I'm definitely guilty of romanticising train travel. If I had my way, we'd still be relying on steam trains. Young wives running alongside trains as they pull away, waving their handkerchiefs at stern, yet kind men, who're saying "I'll write every week darling, I promise!" would be a regular occurrence. With all those people in such a small space, you could meet your soulmate on an otherwise very ordinary train journey. If you believe in soulmates.

It was Samuel Johnson who said that when one is tired of London, one is tired of life. I'd re-phrase, and mangle his idea: when you're tired of quietly observing all kinds of people as they pass through somewhere like a busy railway station, then you're probably tired of people.

On that note, have a bit of this. I'm not sure if I'm late to the party as far as this song is concerned (I'm not great with singers other people have heard of. Sad but true):

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCYtesyE7OA

Jealousy and other stories...

Apologies in advance for the length of this post. Like that girl in Mean Girls, I just have a lot of feelings. I am aware that putting this disclaimer here is only giving you more shit to read. 
As you were. 

It's been over a month. And people have started pointing this out to me. So, as The Bastard Dissertation was handed in 14 days ago, and all I'm doing with myself is melting my brain in an office in Uckfield (East Sussex is weird...it's no West Sussex), it's probably time I wrote some shit on the internet.

But first, I'm going to recommend you some cool stuff.

Number one on the list of Things I Can't Currently Get Enough Of is 'Moranthology', by Caitlin Moran ('How To Be A Woman', anyone?). It's a collection of her columns from The Times, and while I cannot recommend it enough, I will say, don't read it in public. A young couple and their toddler genuinely edged away from me and scuttled down the platform at East Croydon station while I was standing there sniggering at her description of how girls dance in music videos.

Number two on the list is the film 'Shadow Dancer'. If you can find somewhere that's still showing it, then I beg you to go and see it. 'Whoa there, internet wench!' I hear you say. 'We don't know enough about Northern Irish politics! We're not going to get this film!' Yes, you will. It's a clever and well-acted film that's as beautifully-shot as it is bleak, and you will be thinking about it long after you've left the cinema.

Finally, I've recommended them before, but I'll say it again. Check out Brontide, 'cause they're fucking awesome. And they have the most beautiful drummer I've ever seen (oh, wait. That's awkward). I saw them live for the second time on Sunday, and they were bloody excellent. There were also so many hipsters present at the gig that you couldn't move for questionable haircuts, over-thought facial hair and jumpers. It was like a live version of the internet.

Here, try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6lvuWDZpPA


The following isn't especially relevant to my life (at least, not currently), but for some reason I started thinking about it on the train the other day, and wrote most of this post in my head while proofing car insurance policies. So here goes.

Jealousy’s a funny old bug, isn’t it? It’s one of the few emotions that you can’t say anything good about. Blind rage? Well, it gets shit done.  Frustration? It’s lovely when it’s relieved. Grief? Tends to follow the loss of something good. But jealousy? Oh no.  It achieves precisely nothing. 

 I didn’t really ‘get’ jealousy until I was in my late teens – until I was in my first relationship, in fact. My secondary school years were spent in a mostly envy-free zone. It wasn’t as if I was an especially secure, confident, well-adjusted teenager (I spent five years in an all-girls school that had a reputation for academic excellence; of course I wasn’t secure or well-adjusted). I just never understood the concept. If someone was being particularly possessive and jealous over something or someone, I just wondered why they’d never learnt to share. 

It’s something you have to really think hard about in order to overcome it, I’ve decided. You have to come at it from all angles, slice it and dice it until you’ve dealt with it absolutely and thoroughly. 
Take jealousy within friendships, for example. Most people can probably think of a friend that has a bit of a Midas touch – everything seems to go right for them. Or, you can probably think of a friend you’d happily life-swap with, just for a few days. A very dear friend of mine has just got herself a job and a flat in London (she’s worked bloody hard to get where she is, mind), and when I saw her place on Sunday, I totally had an “aww, I want to be living and working in London. Like, now”. But then I thought about it properly. Would I want to be working in the City, in a hugely competitive environment, spending all day in heels and pencil skirts? No, actually, I wouldn’t. For starters, I’m shit at Maths, and I don’t have any interest in business (I loathe and detest The Apprentice).  And secondly, I struggle in any footwear that’s not a ballet flat or a Converse All Star. Wobbling round London in Kurt Geiger’s finest isn’t really going to suit me. 

Jealousy really takes on its monstrous, green-eyed, ugly form when it rears up in relationships. It’s incredibly frustrating because it’s such a paradox: feeling jealous can lead to some pretty relationship-ending behaviour, but it usually comes from a fear of a relationship ending. By acknowledging that you’re feeling little flutters of jealousy, you’re telling yourself that you’re not good enough. And then you probably chastise yourself for feeling that way, and hey presto, you have one sorry vicious circle. (I spend a frightening amount of time either apologising for having feelings, or silently feeling guilty for having feelings. Sad but true.)

This is where the role-reversal thing comes in. Or the do-as-you-would-be-done-by thing. If I'm kicking off about something (I say 'kicking off'; getting blunt and angsty is more my style), I make an attempt at asking myself if I would expect the other person to do the same if the situation was reversed. Generally, the answer is "No". Sometimes, it is a struggle and the "YEAH, BUT -" part of me wins out. 
This makes more sense if you can apply it to an actual example, so let's try this one. I get on really well with guys, and almost prefer to be the only girl with a group of male friends (don't make it weird. Also, this doesn't mean that my female friends aren't brilliant and very dear to me, 'cause they are). I also tend to like boys who have a lot of female friends and get on well with women generally - what I'm saying is, I would never kick off about a guy in my life spending time with female friends because I would never stand for them getting in a tizzy about me being friends with boys. I wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

And going on from this, I'm also a total and utter flirt. Not in a predatory way, you understand (though after too much wine, that one's probably up for debate), just in a harmless way. Caitlin Moran actually puts it really well: two people being lovely to each other and just enjoying "being total lovelies together". It's fun, it makes the day go quicker, and I'd never have enjoyed any job I've ever had without it. (Except working in a school office at uni last year. History and Anthropology lecturers are, on the whole, pretty hard to flirt with.) The point being, I'm never going to be able to have a "you were flirting with her! You so were!" hissy fit because I'd be throwing the mother of all stones from a rather ostentatious glass house.

About the bajillionth frustrating thing about feeling jealous is that it’s incredibly hard to talk about it in a sane, rational manner – and talking about it doesn’t necessarily help.  It's almost more acceptable to be jealous and possessive when you're around the 16-18 mark and you've got your sixth-form boyfriend/girlfriend; you're still young and making a hash of things. Like a young lion cub, you haven't really got a handle on how sharp your claws and teeth are, so you use them freely. No amount of reassurance from the other person in the relationship is going to help; the change has to come from the person doing battle with the monster. You have to decide that you're not going to give into that nagging little voice. It’s like waves, I think – you feel the first one, then the next, then the next – and you can let them pull you into their freezing tide, or you can plant yourself firmly on dry land and march briskly away from the water. 

You've had some Brontide, now have these guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2BUEzdjfpY