Jess Knappett from Drifters is your spirit animal. At least she would be, if people still said spirit animal. Basically, Meg (who Jess writes and plays her in the v. funny E4 show) is the TV equivalent of you and me: a bloody disaster. But a loveable one.
The show’s about to return for its third season and the opener finds the girls still struggling to make things work as ‘adults’. They’re also, unsuprisingly, back in a number of sticky situations. This time, they involve unrequited oral sex, hate shagging and trying to adjust to living with boys (gross).
Since Jess created Drifters, she’s spent a lot of time thinking about the ups, downs and more downs of being a twentysomething girl. It is for this very reason that we figured she’d be the perfect girl to answer some of the more burning questions you lot are always asking. So here she is, agony aunt Jess, here to save the day and you from yourself.
Dear Jess
My housemate is messy, a dick, and drunk like 99% of the time. How do I get rid of them?
We dealt with it in my house by coming up with an elaborate plan where we all decided we were going to move out, but we weren’t going to move out, we just had to pretend so that the girl found a new place and when that deal was done, it was too late. Then we were like, ‘Oh, we’ve all decided we’re going to stay.’
We also had another one where a housemate didn’t like cats, so we got a cat. I say we got a cat, but we basically stole a cat. We stole a cat and put it in our house, so that she would leave. The cat was actually our next door neighbour’s child’s. I mean it’s a horrible story, but we felt like we were rescuing this not very looked after kitten, but it grew into a cat and we thought we should probably give it back, but it was too late.
After a while, she grew to love the cat anyways, so that backfired.
Dear Jess
Sometimes, I’m sat at home in my pants and I see on Instagram that all my friends are hanging out together without me. How do I deal with the FOMO?
I think you just turn up. There’s ways of figuring out where they are. You can just try and blend in and see if anyone notices. I think in that situation everyone’s going to be too polite to say anything.
Dear Jess
If I meet a guy on Tinder and he’s nice and all, but he doesn’t look like his pictures and I’m not really feeling him, do I have to stay on the date?
You’ve got to flag it up, haven’t you? I think you need to flag it up from the off. You need to say, ‘You don’t really look like your pictures do you, mate?’ It’s misleading. I don’t put up with that. I’ve got a very low tolerance for Photoshopping.
Dear Jess
If I have no money, but I’m fucking hungry, what’s the best meal I can pull together for the cheapest price?
I used to live off stock cubes crumbled into hot water. That is a soup. (Jess C: I tell her that actually, this is gravy.) Don’t call it gravy, it’s soup. You can essentially survive on that, then you’ve just got to get some change together for some really bad white bread.
Pasta, maybe? Pasta and ketchup. You know you’ve reached an all-time low when ketchup is pasta sauce.
Dear Jess
All my housemates hang out with their boyfriends on Sundays while I sit on my own. How do I deal?
Again, tag along. I’m always one for tagging along. My brother and his wife have been together for 10 years and I’ve been single for the whole time. His catchphrase for me is: ‘I’ll do that’ because I just tag along wherever they are on a Sunday.
Unless, obviously, it’s gone too far and it’s intimate. I don’t join them on their afternoon delight.
The other thing you can do is make a decision to do something pointedly single. Embrace it and decide you want to go to the cinema alone. But you have to seed the idea from early in the week because it’s your choice and it’s fine because you’re in control of the situation.
So on Monday, you have to say, ‘I’m going to the cinema on my own on Sunday because I want to.’ Your mates will look at your and be like, ‘Awww’, but really they’ll be jealous.
Dear Jess
My best friend’s made a new friend and she’s all, ‘Oh Sarah this’ and ‘Sarah that’. I’m jealous and territorial. What do I do?
Well, obviously, you’ve got to mock them relentlessly for having a new friend. I mean, that’s the only way to get round it. Take the piss out of Sarah and their relationship until they’re terrified to speak her name in case they’re mimicked.
Or just interrogate them until they feel embarrassed about it and then they’ll realise they’re making a terrible mistake and they’re hanging around with the wrong person.
Dear Jess
I’ve been at an internship for six weeks and I’m really, really bored. How do I get out of it?
I’ve been in a situation where it looks like it’s not going anywhere and they’re not going to pay me any time soon, so the awkward thing really is finding a way to leave. So that’s when a ‘personal commitment’ comes up that’s taking you out of the country.
I mean you have to kill an uncle. I think most of my uncles died during work experience like, mysteriously. How many uncles can you actually kill? It depends on the amount of jobs you go for. You’ve got to keep some uncles on the backburner, too.
Dear Jess
My best friend’s had a really good career thing happen. I’m happy, but ultimately I’m jealous as hell. What do I do?
I think you need a go-to catchphrase that you’ll always use so that it’s like a default thing that you come out with. Something like, ‘I’m so happy for you, may god bless you in all your successes.’ But they’re going to know, aren’t they? I just can’t.
Actually, I came clean with my friend the other day. I said: ‘I’m happy for you as a friend, but on a professional level I’m so jealous.’ She said she appreciated my honesty.
Season 3 of Drifters is on E4 on 22 October at 9pm.
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
Made In Chelsea 10.1. Tiff’s Secret Kisses, JP And Binky’s Near Misses And Jess’s Sex Demand Disses
The Great British Bake Off FINAL: Cake Me Up Before You Go Go** **
Follow Jess on Twitter @Jess_Commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.