The party’s over once you hit middle age
One of the not-so-fun parts of reaching middle age is the party cycle.
It’s not as if your urge to go to parties dries up, but the invites adhere neatly to the law of diminishing returns.
It begs one of the great philosphical questions - if a party goes off and you’re not invited did it ever actually happen.
So we’re really talking about weddings here.
I know there’s plenty of those happening every week because you see lots of happy couples looking fresh and improbably winsome in the paper every week
And shortly after that photo was taken you know they all headed off to the aftermatch complete with its rich cast of characters.
The best man who wildly misjudges the audience and fires out jokes that would make tungsten curl, the groom who’s genuinely concerned he may actually burst into flames under his mother-in-law’s stare, the groomsman who gets completely hosed down and repeatedly lays his heart at the feet of the maid of honour and the bad cousin who relieves himself in the punchbowl.
Ok, so I’ve only witnessed the first three but I’m confident the fourth one does actually exist.
I love weddings and not just because they’re a celebration when everything is fresh and new and wild optimism is in full bloom, but also because they’re the great leveller.
They’re not the office party, let’s face it, everyone gets invited to those but they are fraught with danger.
Weddings are sedate only until the booze flows as freely as the love. And nobody’s going to judge if you let it all hang out on the dance floor and yell Sweet Caroline at the band until they start swearing under their breath.
In my defence I did that at my own wedding.
Hands, touching hands, reaching out touching meeee, touching yoooou. Cue lots of exaggerated hand gestures and bodily contact with complete strangers. Spectacular at full volume.
Actually, come to think of it, there may be a reason I don’t get invited to weddings anymore.
Sadly I’m not old enough to marry off my own offspring and to be fair I’m in no hurry for that.
All of my friends have either tied the knot at least once or sworn off it for good. My last hope is pick up a few as the embarrassing uncle.
But wait, it gets worse. The 40ths have all but done their dash and it looks like I’m winning the race to 50.
Soon enough, as grim as it sounds, the best chance of making it to any sort of social gathering will be wakes.
I’m not sure if it’s irreverent to say this but the few wakes I have been to have been awesome. With the catharthis of the funeral all done wakes are a long sigh but a celebration all the same.
Not usually a band occasion so Sweet Caroline is unlikely to get an airing.
Maybe I should stipulate in my will that song is to be belted out at my wake. That and the bad cousin is not to be invited.