Dear Zayn,
So I hear you want to be a ‘normal 22-year-old’? Having been one until about a month ago I can tell you one thing - you’re fucking mental - but hey, this is your life, and you know what - I want to help. As someone who has absolutely no experience with being the best member of the world’s most successful boyband ever, I feel I’m extremely qualified to be your mentor, and I’ll do it all for free too. Working for free is a big part of being a young person in 2015 - there you go, I’ve taught you something already.
The first big problem you have is the money. You’re worth £15millon Zayn. Fifteen million. Most 22-year-olds barely have 15 quid, and no I’m not exaggerating. A vital part of being a regular 22-year-old schmuck is hitting the 28th day of the month and knowing you have to make the choice between getting needlessly wasted down your local or eating any semblance of a meal for the next three days. You choose the pub, Zayn, you always choose the pub. To be honest, it’s not even really a choice.
But yeah, about that £15million - it’s going to have to go. You could give it all to charity, but then people’ll notice and you’ll be back in the headlines again. It’s going to have to be a bit more low key. Burying it might be cool - you could pretend you’re a pirate. Daydreaming about being someone else is an important point of the 22-year-old’s lifestyle - largely because most of our real lives are still a little bit shit. So yeah, burying your treasure could be fun - you could draw an ‘X’ on a map, put it in a bottle and lob it in the Thames. No one will find it, but it’s a nice idea, isn’t it? Alternatively, if that doesn’t appeal, you could always whack it behind the bar at the Victoria Inn in Peckham. It happens to be just down the road from my house and you’d be doing me a real solid. Think about it mate, that’s all I’m saying.
Your next problem is probably your biggest. It’s your face. Have you seen it? It’s fucking beautiful - a glorious creation. You are so pretty it makes me a little bit angry - no one should legitimately be allowed to own that jawline. So yeah, we’re going to have to fix up your look. The average 22-year-old dude is the bloke who tells his mates that his Tinder “must be broken, I think”, because he hasn’t had a new match in two weeks. Oh yeah, Perrie’s going to dump you and you’re going to get Tinder, because come on, a regular guy with a beautiful pop star girlfriend - who are you kidding?
Head down your local barbers and get a shit £6 haircut - no more of this topknot nonsense - it actually suited you and that’s just not on. A new wardrobe too - you’re now limited to two pairs of jeans, one of which you don’t even like, which means you just wear the same one pair for weeks on end and hope that nobody comments. You’re going to need to go on a pretty strict diet, too - nothing but pizza and beer for at least a good few months - don’t stop until you’ve built that post-uni belly the rest of us spend 14 hours a day sucking in or tucking into our underwear. If you’re lucky the months worth of grease will give you the odd breakout of spots too - congratulations, you’re almost becoming one of us.
Talking of uni, Zayn, you’re probably going to have to go. You won’t be the only 22-year-old just getting round to starting first year, that’s for sure - and tell you what, you’re going to have an absolutely banging gap year story. You’re going to need to learn all the rules to ‘Ring of Fire’ and develop a passing interest for the history of art. That’s the degree you’re going to be doing, by the way - they have about four contact hours a week - which means you’ll still have loads of time to focus on making terrible life decisions.
This is actually the biggie, and at the end of the day, what it all comes down to. If something seems like it will probably be an awful idea and have hugely regrettable consequences, you should definitely do it. You’ve got a lot of catching up to do - being caught smoking a spliff when you’re in One Direction might be a bit of a booboo, but here in the real world it’s just not going to cut it. Seize the day. Steal that traffic cone. Be a dick.
Your guiding light,
Alex
