Turn off the LADitude

As far as tolerance is concerned, I neither have the time nor energy to hate, and in any case, I enjoy ranting just as much as I enjoy eating sand. That said, the one species that I will take time out of my busy schedule to rant about are the seemingly nocturnal ‘lads’ that infest our otherwise impeccable city.

Once upon a time (last week), I found a spare hour between drinking vodka out of kitchen mugs and complaining about having 9am lectures. During this time, I was reading the Guardian online. I didn’t just tell you that to emphasise that I am pretentious, I wanted to mention this – a writer in the Guardian called ‘lad’ culture at university ‘the entire student ethos itself’. This ridiculous association made me want to immediately vomit onto the keyboard of my shiny new Macbook.

The writer finishes by claiming that some people don’t ‘appreciate the complex irony’ of the ‘lads’. Yes, true, just as I don’t understand the ‘complex irony’ behind the scribblings of my five-year-old cousin.

I understand the mind of this writer less than I understand what those little numbers in minesweeper actually mean.

Being loud, boisterous and attention-seeking are all factors that are often attributed with being insecure and, perhaps, self-conscious. In my mind there are only a few reasons for insecure teens to express themselves in this manner: childhood parent issues or an underlying psychiatric condition, leaving the ‘lad’ deluded in thinking that he actually is ‘the shit’. But more likely, these symptoms are typical of sexual inactivity, due to abnormally small and/or deformed genitals.

So the next time you detect the characteristic body odour of a ‘lad’ whilst squeezing through swarms of freshers in Tequila on a Thursday night, do not hate; pity. Give them a condescending smile whilst referring them to your local GP, reassure them that their daddy loves them. Leave them in peace whilst they hunt for a girl so drunk that she cannot refuse entry of their cauliflower shaped penis.