It can be a challenge talking to people you hate. It requires a certain diplomacy and ability to be objective. I applaud those who have talked to anti-abortion protestors, who have faced up to their demon bosses. But this one, this person I'm about to talk to, this is pretty bad. Objectivity is key here, but I just don't know if it's going to be much of an option. See, I've known this person for years. I will continue to be in contact with her after the piece. She's probably the person I know best in the world. So why did I agree to talk to her for this article? There's no beating around the bush here, I'm just going to have to go in quick with the brutal truth, not give her a chance to answer back. I just hope it doesn't all end in tears.

Look, it's time I was honest with you. I don't think anyone else will be. I just want to give you a straight opinion of yourself. So you can... grow. Improve as a person. I mean, sometimes I just don't understand how I know you. Some of the things you do make me wonder how most of the time I actually don't mind you. Occasionally quite like you. Remember the time in that American lit class, we were talking about postmodernism and the rest of the class didn't get it, and you so did, and the lecturer and visiting professor and you were having some intellectual discussion about Moebius strips and simulacra, while everyone else looked like you were talking Greek? Yeah, that was pretty sweet, I liked you then.

But you can be incredibly rude without even realizing it. You constantly interrupt people, always having to jump in with your two cents' worth. It's worse when it's an "anything-you-can-do, I-can-do-better" style story -- you couldn't just let the poor schmuck have their share of the limelight?

You have this weird complex where you let absolute morons make you feel inferior, and you accept this, but you in turn have a superiority complex over people you don't even know. It's really pathetic. Oh, and let's not forget the French Joke Syndrome¹. I kind of hate you when things like that happen.

The way you let people take you for granted-that's quite annoying. It can really wind me up sometimes. You can be too "nice" (and let's face it, who actually wants to be known as being "nice"?) and let people get away with murder, whether it's your housemates or work colleagues. And I still haven't quite figured out if this "niceness" (seriously, nice is such a bloody bland word, you really should try and move out of this bracket), whether it's actually genuinely because you want people to like you, or whether it's more of an "anything for the easy life" gimmick.

Oh, I don't know if I ever told you this, but you can be the worst film snob, and it gets irritating. I know how much it bugs your sister. I understand you're not as bad as some others. You're equally scathing about those who only watch "high concept bullshit," those Hollywood spectaculars that tend to lack a little in storyline, and those who won't watch anything that isn't made by one of the great auteurs of the 20th Century. You do have a fairly good balance between the McGs and the Kurosawas, but you don't need to nag your sister about the fact that she actually liked "2 Fast, 2 Furious" or "Bad Boys 2" (I'm sensing a general dislike of sequels, in fact). You can also be a bit of a literature snob. Just because you're reading Nabokov and Howard Zinn, that does not entitle you to judge people who read chick lit on the train. That includes your poor sister again. What did she ever do to you, apart from be more of a head-cheerleader type than you will ever be? Repeat after me: everyone is individual and unique, and just because she likes to have a large group of friends, go out partying a hell of a lot, maybe engage her brain a little less than you...wait, now I'm getting critical. Dammit.

You can be a bit of an antisocial idiot, you know. So the guys up at university were all morons, and now you're back home in London where they're all either pretentious arty types that you laugh at or city types that you...well, laugh at. Stop laughing at people. It's not good. They're probably laughing at you as well. This isolationism isn't healthy. Get out a bit more. You seem to spend weeknights in a darkened room watching films (very rarely is it a "movie") or maybe sitting in your room reading. Yes it may broaden your horizons slightly, and help expand your literary knowledge in your quest to become a writer, but you know what else really helps? Meeting people. Write what you know -- what are you going to write about, a loser that sits alone in her room the whole time, reading and writing? Kind of sounds like Confederacy of Dunces. Maybe we should start calling you Ignatius, ha ha. Oh look, I've just gone and made a literary joke, almost in the French Joke Syndrome style. Shit.

And that thing you do with alcohol? Enough already. Learn your limits. You know - up to a point it does you good, makes you a little more confident, chatty and sociable (as opposed to the usual you who is content to sit in reading all evening, loser). But then, a shot too far and you just switch. Clingy, whiny, insecure. God, it's boring. Yeah, you know what, your ass probably does look big in it; you shouldn't have worn it in the first place. And to be honest, who gives a monkey's if that hottie at the bar is checking out you or your friend? Stop talking to me about it.

You know one other thing I really don't like? Your honesty. Let's face it, if you weren't so honest, this wouldn't have been necessary. But you are, and so here we are, a little less than a thousand words about your faults and failings, for the whole world to read about. It had to be done though. Maybe now you can learn from this experience, and stop making clever-clever jokes and references, stop judging people by what they read and watch, stop interrupting people. I think that's the -- oh wait, one last thing. Stop talking to yourself. It's the first sign of madness, you know.

¹ After Matrix Reloaded - the french dude in it makes a joke in French, I speak French, laugh obnoxiously loudly before it has been translated just to prove to the packed out cinema -- "look how intelligent I am, I understand the joke before it has been translated for you only-speak-one-language ignorants". And of course, a second later, realise quite how fucking pathetic this is.

Continuing in the theme of this article, the author would just like to point out the French Joke Syndrome style reference in the second paragraph that was initially written in without any thought to the matter, but on a second reading, was realised to possibly be a very clever-clever reference to talking to oneself like this in an article. The author felt very smug. The mentions of simulacra and Moebius strips both representing this - the simulacra of oneself talking to ...well, oneself, and the Moebius strip to represent the neverendingness (honestly, it's a word) of talking to oneself. She then got over the smugness, and realised that it was too clever-clever, and to point it out would make her look petty and pseudo-intellectual. The author would also like to point out that she doesn't usually refer to herself in the third person, and believes it is a horrifying habit adopted purely by sports stars too big for their big-brand-name-endorsed sneakers.