Maybe I've never smiled or laughed at an appropriate time in my entire life and I just didn't realise until this moment.

Normally I'm good with silence, but this feels like very pointed 'we are two people with nothing to say to each other' silence, which is the most stressful silence after 'I am mad at you' silence.

I am an adult now (sort of, kind of, not really).

We were once a friendship group of three individuals – three equals, three devoted but platonic points of a triangle – and now we're a breathlessly in love couple (them) and a person who spends her Saturday night taking photos of the back of her head in a mirror so she can understand what it's like to see herself from behind (me).

I will do arts, then maybe honours and a PhD (I am the kind of person who will just keep automatically doing the next study option until there are none left).

They want to be something. They'll have real jobs. And money. I don't know what I want to be. I mostly trained myself to do well at school as an antidote to all the dark thoughts, the ones that said 'no one likes you very much' and 'you have nothing to show for your life except schoolwork'.

I always had this vision of myself doing something important during my teen years. I didn't think I would be a child prodigy, but I thought I would be something very close to it, and now I'm almost out of time. Before I know it, I'll be twenty-one and no one will be impressed by anything I do.

Everyone knows you can't really trust any feeling you have at night - and the later the hour, the less trustworthy it is. Anything you feel after 10pm is suspect, anything after midnight should be discounted altogether.

People aren’t all good or all bad. You can learnfrom mistakes. Or you can keep making them. You can always become a better person.

Okay, tell me your top five tips,' I say, suddenly realizing Alex is going to be here any minute.'I'm not a BuzzFeed article.''Quick, just tell me the most important things.