Why I hate drinks parties — and the worst words in the English language: ‘You absolutely MUST meet ...’

AS A KEEN whisky drinker, my late father would often quote with approval whichever sage it was (I think Kingsley Amis, though I’ve heard others lay claim to it), who said the most depressing words in the English language were: ‘Red or white?’

But the words that make my heart sink furthest and fastest, on the rare occasions when I go to a drinks party, are these: ‘You absolutely must meet . . .’, followed by the name of a fellow guest with whom my hostess is convinced I’ll hit it off.

It’s not that I’m misanthropic. In principle, I like getting to know strangers. But in my case, it takes a long time to feel wholly comfortable with someone I haven’t previously met. About eight years, on average, I’d say.

As for the social minefield of a drinks party, this is the last forum on Earth in which I would feel relaxed enough for the bonding process to begin. Give me a good old pub, any day, where we can talk to fellow drinkers or avoid them as we please, with no obligation to be sociable if we don’t feel like it.

Terrifying

So it is that when I arrive at a party I stand by the door, scouring the room desperately for a familiar face to which I can put a name (increasingly rare these days, as age takes its toll on my memory cells). Preferably, it will belong to someone I’ve known for decades.

I’ll then make a beeline for him or her, offering a cheery wave or blowing a kiss to my hostess as I hurry past, careful not to get close enough for her to utter those terrifying words.

Then I’ll bore the pants off that one old friend for as long as I can — the whole party, if I’m lucky — delaying the awful moment when I’m caught and dragged off to mingle with people I ‘ absolutely must meet’. I know, I know. I’m the guest from hell. No wonder I’m asked to so few parties.

It was with utter horror, therefore, that I learned this week of a new profession that’s arrived on the social scene, I presume from America. So far it has only one practitioner in Britain, a 58-year-old called Rachel Fay, who describes herself as: ‘ The UK’s first — and only — professional introducer.’

Let my fellow sociophobes be warned. If they take my advice, they’ll study photographs of this dangerous woman, keep an eye out for her at parties — and avoid her at all costs.

Advertising her service on the internet, Ms Fay declares: ‘Now there’s no need for your guests or your home team to leave the social event, business seminar or conference without having met four, five, ten even — relevant people.

‘Make your event the most satisfying stand-out event of the season by having you and your guests introduced with diplomacy and courtesy.’

Social mingling is a dying art, she claims, as hosts and hostesses increasingly neglect their duty to introduce guests to each other (if only!). Now that women have entered the workplace, they no longer take charge of entertaining for their husbands. Meanwhile, men assume meetings just happen. ‘But they don’t,’ she says. ‘You need a host.’

The way she operates, apparently, is to prepare for her client’s party by writing the guest list — 70 people, she reckons, is an ideal number — on a large sheet of paper which she spreads over her kitchen table in Chiswick, West London. She then draws long lines, criss-crossing the page, as potential connections start appearing, before memorising the whole thing.

With all those names, faces and CVs to research and remember, it sounds to me like an awful lot of hard work for this onewoman social lubricant to undertake — assuming she does it properly (and I’ve no reason to believe she doesn’t).

What beats me is how, unless she has supernatural powers, she can tell who is going to get on with whom. True, she may spot that A went to the same school as B when they were ten, or that X is in the same line of work as Y. But from that, she can’t assume they’re going to enjoy each other’s company.

Contempt

What if B spent his schooldays tormenting A — on one occasion, perhaps, holding A’s head under water in the swimming pool until he almost drowned (all right, I admit it, this is personal!). In such a case, B would be the last man A would like to be reintroduced to at a party, 53 years on — except perhaps to chuck a glass of wine in his face.

And what if X secretly has the deepest professional contempt for Y? No matter how diligently Ms Fay may have researched the guest list, it is highly unlikely that she will have unearthed such a crucial detail.

In my experience, of parties I’ve thrown myself as well as those I’ve attended, the host or hostess’s instincts about who will connect, and who won’t, are almost always wrong. Evenings I’ve dreaded, fearing my guests may hate each other, have turned out to be veritable love-ins. On the other hand, those I’m convinced will be wild successes tend to be horribly sticky affairs, at which my friends can’t think of a word to say to each other.

As for those people I ‘absolutely must meet’, as often as not they seem to take an instant dislike to me, or vice versa. Only the other day, a well-meaning hostess finally introduced me to someone she’d said for ages she’d been longing for me to meet.

The stranger’s first words to me, on being told that I worked for the Mail, were: ‘You campaigned for Brexit, didn’t you? Aren’t you ashamed?’

Not a very friendly opening gambit, I thought. I told him I was proud to work for a paper that believed in democracy, national sovereignty and free trade, not just the corrupt and sclerotic EU but with the whole wide world.

I would have been happy(ish) to carry on our chat — indeed, some of my longstanding friends are Remainers, though they’re not as belligerent and touchy as this one. He turned on his heel and stalked off, while my poor hostess’s hopes of a establishing a new friendship turned to dust.

Infuriating

Ah, well, perhaps a professional introducer could have discovered my views on the EU and those of my antagonist before the party, and kept us apart. But somehow I doubt it.

On one point, however, I’m inclined to agree that in 2017 we could do with the services of a Ms Fay. I’m thinking of the infuriating modern habit of introducing strangers only by their first names (‘Tom, meet David’), and then leaving us to work out what to talk about.

At least a surname gives us something more to go on. Perhaps we may work with one of David’s relations or our children may be friends. We may have read a book by him or heard of him in some other connection.

Indeed, it may be that David turns out to be the B who held A’s head under water, all those years ago. If only A were told his surname, at least he would know to chuck a glass of wine in his face. Yet it seems so pompous to ask.

But spare me, please, from the torture of mingling. If you must introduce me to someone new, then don’t whisk me away to start all over again with someone else, just when we’ve got past the awkward preliminaries: ‘ What do you do?’ ‘Do you live nearby’? ‘Do you have any children?’ etc.

Better still, just accept that I’m a lousy guest and leave me alone. As an Australian friend once said of her husband at a gathering of mine, where he talked to nobody at all: ‘Don’t worry about James. He likes to stand on the outside of a party, peering in.’