Growing up with brothers has given me a male attitude towards love and sex

I’m not an overly emotional girl who gets excited when a guy smiles at me. What’s wrong with that?

I grew up with a handful of older brothers. Three, to be precise, and then one more tagged on when there was another marriage in the family.

What with all their banterous mates coming in and out of the house for most of my teenage years, it’s unsurprising that I’ve been moulded to share many of their opinions and attitudes.

Nowadays, they’re all far more respectful and considerate due to some miraculous maturity, but back in the day where they’d sit around chatting (or lying, rather) about the girls they’d scored with, things were incredibly different.

One of the lads, forever and always

Sure, sometimes it was a bit off-putting to hear what they or their friends would let Britney Spears’ sister do to them while I was innocently trying to watch Zoey 101.

Or when they’d high five over some nudes they got sent and then proceed to pass it around the room.

But, in general, I found this “game” they played pretty enticing.

I can tell that at this point, there’ll be girls everywhere reaching for the comment section so they can accuse my brothers and their friends for being chauvinistic, misogynistic pigs that objectify women and all that jazz.

But you’re wrong – they aren’t misogynists and they don’t objectify women. They were just teenage boys who got off to the prospect of a hot celebrity sitting on their face. Deal with it.

She was of age, I checked.

Hearing what they had to say about who they hooked up with and how they hated clingy girls who wouldn’t stop texting them soon influenced how I perceived relationships, too.

I was quick to realise that guys talk about absolutely everything with their mates, and I mean everything. Ladies, take note.

Along the way, I also picked up on some quality sex jokes and learnt how to down a pint in under 10 seconds. These are valuable traits in a young lass.

Livers of steel run in the family.

I also went to a pompous all girls’ school for eleven years, causing me to hate anything and everything to do with mushy “relationships” where they exchange cringey texts about how much they love each other when they’ve been seeing each other for a grand total of two weeks.

Seriously, fuck off.

As soon as I started having sex with people, I realised that it was way simpler to follow the stereotypically male attitude that my brothers adopted when they were at college.

Getting all attached and emotional towards sexual partners when you’re still only a teenager means you’re bound to get jealous, upset or end up hating the other person’s guts when it all goes tit’s up. It’s just how it goes.

Sure, there are scenarios where it turns out all rainbows and smiles and you stay together forever, but the chances of that happening are very slim.

With the predominantly male influences throughout my teenage years, I’ve picked up on some of the best ways to keep a guy interested without seeming too keen – something that puts most of them off. I also make a killer fry-up, which works wonders.

As for relationships, one night stands and casual sex, what can I say? I enjoy having my own roster.

A girl can get greedy…

Thanks to my brothers, I’ve also learnt the best, bluntest ways to get that creepy guy at the bar to back off; even if it involves punching him straight in the nose and a kick in the stomach. Never the balls, though, unless it’s completely necessary – they were very clear about that.

Then, the best part of it all, if ever someone fucks me over, I’ve got a great set of personal hitmen behind me.