Privately, my boyfriend has been completely ignoring me for three days, leaving my messages unread. At the same time, in our shared trainee group chat, he's making snide remarks about how exhausting clingy partners are – and everyone at work knows exactly who he's talking about. What's with this cowardice?

Short and sweet: Your boyfriend is waging a middle-school relationship war because he simply lacks the guts for a real conversation. Leaving you hanging privately while passive-aggressively portraying you as clingy in front of the entire trainee group isn't funny. It's cheap self-promotion at your expense. He's playing the poor victim in front of his colleagues so he doesn't have to admit he's overwhelmed by the situation. Don't give him a platform. Don't address it in the chat at all—no comebacks, no public drama. Turn the tables and send him exactly one sentence privately: "Save the jokes in front of colleagues. If you have a problem, tell me to my face—or we're done with this." Anyone who needs applause from others to vent their relationship frustrations no longer deserves your VIP status.