Dear Clare,

Awkward Annie

Dear Annie,

Let me first bring to your attention how unnecessary these awkward situations are. Why does the condition of "awkward" exist? You are a person with thoughts and feelings, so why should you feel uncomfortable with another person with thoughts and feelings? Awkwardness is completely ridiculous and can be avoided. Unless of course you run into an ex of your current boyfriend while walking down the street with your boy. That is going to be awkward no matter what.

I'm a big advocate of saying what you feel in most situations — please notice that I didn't say all situations because if your overweight mother asks if she looks fat in her yoga stretch pants, you should NEVER say she does. Anyway, the easiest way out of many of these types of situations is to just talk about it.

Now, some people may not like opening up and sharing their thoughts, hopes, and dreams, but why not bring it up with your high school buds? Just bite the bullet and say, "High school friend, I feel like we were different over break. Did you think things were a little off?" Maybe you will be told that he or she thought everything was chill. If so, maybe reevaluate your reaction. Or you may discover that your buddies weren't as impressed as you thought they'd be when you said you were the "King of Beer Pong," and just didn't know how to respond to the new and obnoxious you.

If being frank doesn't sound very appealing, there are a couple things you can do to mend things with old friends. As an older and (as I've established many times) much wiser person, I do have some suggestions. The first is to live your life and grow up WITH your high school friends, though they're far away. Try to talk about more than just boys, the "freshman 15" or what you heard about other people from your high school. Don't think that every time you talk to them you need to do so for three hours and tell them everything about your life. Instead, keep conversations more frequent and shorter. Call your best high school friend to tell him or her that you just got butchered at the hair salon — oh, no, wait, that was me — or that you just bombed an impossible o-chem test. Also let them know about random things you've become passionate about. That way when you get together it won't be an attempt to catch up on the last three months because they would already be kept up-to-date about the changing you.

Over breaks it's also easy to get back into "high school mode" and fall into the same petty fights and superficial cliques that you thought you had left behind. Really invest time in people you want to see. There's no point in maintaining friendships with people you never really liked in the first place.

Good luck, my friend.

Clare

Dear Clare,

Clean Clarissa

Dear Clarissa,

Is your name really Clarissa? Because if it is, that is awesome! It's awesome because the first four letters resemble my name and because I loved the show "Clarissa Explains It All."

Anyway, my friend, you are in a bit of a bind. If you want to know how you can refrain from sounding like a huge brat, I hate to tell you that there really is no way. No matter how well you sugarcoat your request for your messy roomies, at least one is bound to be offended. So I would like to offer two different strategies you can employ.

The first is neither creative nor original. The second isn't going to fix your problem, but could change your view of the world. That's right, I do big things in this column: I change lives by changing minds.

The first semi-solution is to create a cleaning schedule in which all tasks must be completed on a specific day. I'm sure you've thought of this, but a cleaning schedule would at least make sure they are doing their share. If you are constantly cleaning up after them, why should they pick up their stuff? It may also make them more aware of how messy they are. Perhaps one is on dish duty for Sunday. She may be more inclined to clean her dishes throughout the week so that she won't have as many on Sunday. Does that make sense? Seeing as you can't respond, I will assume it does and continue.

The second suggestion is a little more complex. Last year, I did personality profiles with a group I had to work with for a long period of time. The profile was called, "Tru Colors," (no, not a typo; there's no "e"). It assigns different colors to different types of people. For example, yellow is the very organized/anal color. This, my friend, is probably where you fit. Understanding people's different colors was important because it gave us insight into how that person dealt with different issues and how to best work with them toward a common goal. This is relevant for you because your roomies are not yellows. Therefore, they see their messes differently than you see them. While you think it's disrespectful, they don't because their filth doesn't bother them at all. Due to the fact that it doesn't bother them, they don't see why it bothers you or why you get mad about it. With this little scenario, you basically just have to get over it. You can encourage your roomies to clean by putting up a schedule, but if they are greens — creative, nutty types who are total organizational disasters — they aren't going to clean up much. So just try to accept them for all their "greenness" and maybe explain to them that your "yellowness" makes you view their messes as disrespectful. Perhaps with more understanding of how you all work, you will inhabit a happily harmonious home.

Good luck, my friend.

Clare

P.S. Disclaimer: The above letter was not used to make a statement against my amazing roommates, whom I love dearly. Though I'm not a yellow, I am anal and am in the process of making a cleaning schedule and poems about cleaning for posting on the fridge. Jackie, Britt, Steph, Kristin, Katie, Virginia, Michele and Robin, you are all wonderful and I very much enjoy the "Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown" (real name, I swear) all of our colors come together to create.