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Fresher has already met annoying twat he'll struggle to shake for three years

AN 18-year-old beginning his second week at university has already found the person who he will be desperate to avoid all the way until graduation. 

Jordan Gardner met James Bates at a sign-up session for kickabout football and, keen to make new friends, made the mistake of starting a conversation.

Jordan explained: “The university years are the best of your life, or should be for the cost, so I’ve been trying to put myself out there more. I never knew it could go so horribly wrong.

“We arranged to meet at the bar later, where he immediately barrelled into a conversation I was having with a fit girl on my course and wouldn’t shut the fuck up about how he can’t wait to try loads of recipes in his air fryer. Then listed the recipes.

“He twisted my arm into buying him a pint saying he’s waiting for his loan, then ruined my second try at the fit girl by forcing me to look at pictures of an OnlyFans model he’s subscribed to.

“I tried to get rid of him by saying I was tired, but he followed me back to halls and started having a go at my housemate for wearing shoes indoors, saying, ‘That would get you arrested in Japan’. That flatmate’s not spoken to me since.

“I spoke to my resident advisor, and he told me to quit football, change course, request to switch accommodation and begin going by a different name. Otherwise the twat will end up being my best man.”

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Six things empty nest couples have completely forgotten how to do

AFTER an 18-year wait the kids have gone to university, the house is empty, and the two of you are wondering what you used to do with all these hours. Was it this kind of thing? 

Sleep through the night

Parents of babies expect to have broken sleep. Parents of teenagers get used to some bastard being up at 3am on a video call to their girlfriend while making popcorn. But after two institutionalised decades, the disturbing lack of noise keeps you awake then you can’t sleep after 8am regardless.

Occupy free time

Years of snatching 20 minutes here and there to read, years of pausing telly every time you’re interrupted, and suddenly there’s nothing. Time smothers you like a velvet blanket and all the activities you used to fill an evening with are done by 9pm. This is why old people devote whole weeks to getting a new shower curtain. They have nothing else to do.

Have conversations that aren’t about the kids

Your every conversation has been about the children since Tony Blair was prime minister. Now it’s just two of you on a sofa, awkwardly facing forward, trying not to pick up your phones. And end up bringing up the weather and state of the country, as though strangers waiting for a bus.

Appreciate silence

Once a blizzard of noise, now nobody’s asking where their socks are or if octopuses can be milked for ink. The silence is deafening and disorienting. You hear new creaks and rattles in your knees which were once masked by K-Pop and FIFA. The silence is not appreciated; it’s disturbing. Turn the telly up or have a row.

Socialise

Your one-time party pals, the friendship flame you’ve kept alive through your child-raising years? Now as unencumbered by progeny as you are? You meet for a proper night out and f**k they’re boring, going on about antique restoration or the unfairness of their pension scheme or lawn scarification. ‘Are we that dull?’ you ask your partner, afraid of the answer.

Have sex

With children at home sex is usually a passionless, functional affair, perfunctory and silent. Now there’s time for foreplay and exploration if either of you could remember how to get started or why you’d bother and hadn’t parent-locked yourself out of all devices that might teach you. You try, but the only thing that gets f**ked is your back.

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