Millennial Agony Aunt: Week 13

Emily Watkins is a professional Millennial (read: precariously employed twenty-something). Each week, she answers three generation-specific queries from the depths of her on-brand existential crisis.

For the twelfth instalment of Millennial Agony Aunt, Emily turns her attention to problems with having sex after moving back in with the parents to adult men wearing Lynx Africa.

Please send any quandaries, issues, troubles or thoughts to aunt@whynow.co.uk for a good dose of aunt-ing.

My job contract has ended and while I’ve been looking for new positions, I’ve had no luck and decided to move back in with my parents. It’s early days but it’s been surprisingly fine, all things considered — except for bringing boys home. 

Why didn’t this occur to me? How on earth am I meant to have sex? Help!

Oh, come now. Sorry, that’s insensitive — but I promise I’m only trying to help (you come). 

First question: how old are you? I’m asking because I think it makes a difference, but also in that leading way you prod a younger sibling who’s acting like a baby, ‘how old are you?’. Because, if you’re old enough to have left home once, had a job and lost it, you are either plenty old enough to be having sex with anyone and everyone you like, or you’re one of those child prodigies who finished university aged 11 in which case a) congrats and b) this is above my pay grade. 

Haw haw. I’m assuming you’re at least in your twenties. What’s more, it sounds like you and your parents have a great relationship. As such, in answer to the question ‘how am I supposed to have sex?’, I say ‘however you and your partners prefer’ with a theatrical wink. I understand that what you’re really asking is how to deal with parents/sex in the same house, and again I say — you are (presumably) an adult. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that you hook up with people and bring them back to bed. Unless there’s some genre of sex veto in your family home, then what you’re describing sounds like a psychological barrier rather than a true obstacle.

That’s all very well, Emily, but I’m not trying to make some kind of sex positive statement to my poor old mum. I’m asking for practical suggestions. Fair enough. Do either of you have a car? Can you go to the other person’s house? Wait till your parents are out, or stage a secret living room shag when everyone’s gone to bed? While sneaking around can make things sexier for a while, it’s not a long term solution. And so I’m afraid I find myself back on that first soap box: you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, so don’t waste time acting like you do. Also, don’t fool yourself. Unless you’ve done a very convincing impression of abstinence thus far, there’s no way your parents don’t know you have sex. 

So let’s normalise the conversation. If having your unannounced one-night-stand pad around the kitchen while your dad makes tea feels a bit much, try mentioning dates ahead of time. Practice with me: hey mum, this is BRAD/SRITI/ALEX. We’re off out, see you in the morning! Not so bad really.

I live with 2 other girls and generally it’s brilliant. One of them — let’s call her Jess — has a habit of borrowing things from me and our other housemate. While broadly fine before – it’s getting more and more brazen. She ‘borrowed’ my bike the other week when I needed it to get to work. Yesterday she walked in wearing my favourite cardigan I thought I’d ‘lost’.

I love living with her, but this has got to stop!

How can I make Jess understand the boundaries without losing her as a friend?

This is tough. Jess, as we’re calling her, sounds great — but maybe not as completely and uncomplicatedly great as you’re making out (in your question to me, and maybe even to yourself). Of course, no-one is perfect, everyone has at least one blind spot; friendships and other relationships are really about sizing up those idiosyncrasies in two individuals and doing a quick back-of-an-envelope calculation as to how they might balance each other out.

Sometimes those confluences make things work, and sometimes they make things worse. You and Jess are a case in point.

For her part, Jess seems to have quite a liberal attitude to ownership. Perhaps this is because she’s a revolutionary who resents society’s proprietorial limits on things like what belongs to who… or perhaps she’s just thoughtless and entitled. You, meanwhile, sound lovely — perhaps to a fault?

Read back over your question about helping Jess ‘understand’ boundaries: who’s to say she doesn’t already? That her transgressions are less a ‘whoops!’ than a ‘fuck you’? I’m being cynical here, it’s true — but only to illustrate how generous you’re being, and to model being a bit more assertive while I’m at it:

1. Jess is behaving badly. 
2. You have every right to be angry with her.
3. The time has come to say that out loud rather than just infer it. 

You say you ‘made it clear it wasn’t cool’; I wonder what that looked like. For your sake, I hope you weren’t clear at all — that way, there’s still room to hope that putting your foot down (‘Jess! Stop taking my stuff!’) might have some impact where a dejected ‘that’s ok I guess *sad eyes*’ didn’t. 

Look. It’s your prerogative to put up with the rough for the sake of the smooth. I just want you to know that it’s fine to be angry, to decide someone’s crossed a line and pass the responsibility to patch things up to them rather than shouldering it alone. Life is too short, and you sound too kind, to be Jess’ doormat. Good luck!

Me and my boyfriend got together when we were still at school and I’m totally convinced we’re soulmates. Only problem is, he still wears the same aftershave he did when we were sixteen — Lynx Africa, no less — and won’t take the hint when I give him more adult scents.

How do I make him see the light and accept that it’s not ok for an adult man to smell like a locker room from 2008?

Oh, this is the sweetest question! But have you posed it to him? Because I know you’re soulmates an’ al’, but that doesn’t make him telepathic — certainly, he doesn’t seem to be taking the hint thus far. 

NB: although I’m advocating honesty as your first port of call, please do tread gently. Scent is really personal and it would be dreadful to feel that your partner had been secretly cowering from you for years, breathing through their mouth every time you lean in for a kiss. So this should definitely feel like a by-the-way statement, not a we-need-to-talk intervention — like it’s just occurred to you, off-hand rather than on-the-nose. Like when he’s just prayed himself: ‘wow, is that your normal deodorant? It smells stronger than usual!’; ‘now I think about it, I’m not sure I love that scent? Do you still like it?’ That kind of thing.

If all else fails surely there are worse things to hear than ‘baby, I love you but I hate your deodorant’. Why don’t you try that and let me know how it goes?