Agony aunt #1... thievery and chaos

I am starting a wee series... I am stepping into the 'Agony Aunt' shoes for the first time. God knows why I think I'm qualified to advise others... I can't even advise myself. Pull up a pew, and let's begin.

Sophia wrote in:

"My ex situationship still has lots of my stuff, and isn't receptive to me getting it back"

Ok Sophia. There are several steps involved in making a citizen's arrest:

To make a citizen's arrest in the UK, you must have reasonable grounds to believe an indictable offence has been committed, inform the person of the arrest and the reason, and use only reasonable force, while also contacting the police as soon as possible.

On second thought, perhaps a bit extreme.

Side note: can we talk about the lunacy of 'situationships'. I watch so many of my friends trapped in the 'casually shagging but the other one doesn't want anything more'. I'm sorry, but if you're attracted to each other, and enjoy each other's company, stop all of this Gen Z nonsense, and date. The desire to keep one's (and let's be real, it's often the boys who are guilty of this) options open is imprisoning our generation in an endless cycle of situationships. Plus, they hurt! When they inevitably end, it's effectively a breakup but we feel we cannot be sad, as there was no label. It's still a form of grief. What's more, for some people it's worse than a breakup because you're also letting go of what could have been. At least with straightforward breakups, you generally breakup because the relationship didn't work, for whatever reason. The situationship phenomenon is destroying dating conventions and leaving a lot of people, well, sad.

Ok. Rant over. Situationship keeping your things. Hmmm... Sophia you have 3 options now.

1. Kill him with 'kindness'. Offer to go over to his to 'apologise'. People love their bad decisions being excused by someone else's imaginary wrongdoing. Do you happen to enjoy baking? If not, now's the time to start. Take over some baked goods... for example, is he lactose intolerant? Claim to have made a dairy free carrot cake, but lace it with copious amounts of cream cheese. While he's destroying the bathroom, grab your stuff and do a runner. Vegetarian? Take him homemade pesto with rennet. Coeliac / gluten free? Hot cross buns stuffed with all things wheat. Vegan? The opportunities are literally endless. Maybe I should start a revenge cookbook.

2. Send the bailiffs over. Enlist some of your more menacing friends. Catch him off guard - perhaps when you know he's been out the night before. Being hungover reduces your cognitive processing by 40%. (I made that up but I think it sounds true). They say "we demand Sophia's possessions back". Men hate being embarrassed. He will quickly grab the things and try and get said bailiffs out of the house as fast as is humanly possible. Mission accomplished. You will then meet them on the road (where you've been hiding around the corner) and go and get brunch and bitch about him. Epic.

3. Use it as an excuse for shopping to replace said items. Much more fun.

   
   

So dearest Sophia, I hope this has helped. Do let me know what you end up doing - and if you fancy sending his name over, I will immediately execute a smear campaign on social media. The thieving bastard.