My life in parties
*THIS IS HOW TO PARTY NOW
Always smile, stay at least half an hour: Elizabeth Day’s rules on how to party
When I was a child, I began planning my birthday party during the school summer holidays. To put this into context, my birthday is in November. But by mid-July, I’d be surrounded by paper and felt-tip pens as I designed my invitations. I would make a guest list, even though there were only six people in my class and I’d always invite them all.
When the day finally arrived, I’d have built myself into an anticipatory fever-pitch. As a result, the parties were never as good as they had been in my imagination. When my mother put magic candles on my cake – the kind that are blown out, only to reignite seconds later – I’d burst into tears, because I thought everyone was laughing at me.
I’ve had the same ambiguous relationship with parties ever since. On the one hand, when a party goes well, you can’t beat the glamour, the fun, the drunken dancing; I love being with good friends, or bonding with strangers over a shared love of Britney Spears’ Toxic. I adore the canapés, the outfits, the feeling of being thrown together with other
people who want to go wild and check out of their everyday lives for one night only. They come in many forms – house parties, office parties, book launches, birthdays and weddings – but, at their best, they all have one thing in common: they are hedonistic whirls of true abandon that are worth the hangover.
But when parties go bad, I hate the sense of loneliness; the anxiety that no one there wants to talk to you; the guilt you experience when you just want to leave early and go to bed; the feeling you get when you’ve worn the wrong thing and your shoes are uncomfortable and how the hell are you going to find a reasonably priced Uber at this time of night anyway?
I am a classic introvert who masquerades as an extrovert. Left to my own devices, I’m at my happiest in the bath with a book. But my first job as a journalist was for the diary column of The London Evening Standard, which required attending London’s glitziest parties for gossip in the hope of finding a story for the next day’s paper. I had to pretend not to be nervous when bowling up to Pierce Brosnan at an awards party to ask him some deeply important question about whether or not he thought it would be good to have a female James Bond.
I went to some fabulous events, including the after party for The Lord of the Rings movie, where there were fire jugglers and people covered in face paint serving drinks. At the Cannes Film Festival, I sipped champagne on super-yachts and interviewed Stephen Fry on a hotel rooftop. I was chatted up by a member of a boyband and I dated a television presenter. And what I discovered was this: often, the most outgoing party guests are also the most insecure. When I admitted to my own vulnerability at these events, it turned out I wasn’t alone. There was the It girl who confessed she never felt she fitted in, and the actor who said he hated having to make small talk. More often than not, if I went up to someone with a smile and a chatty opening question, they responded kindly. Generally, people at parties are too busy masking their own shyness or having fun to notice your awkwardness. Once I realised this, it was liberating; there’s no point in feeling self-conscious because, unless you’re an A-list celebrity, then no one’s looking at you.
When I entered my thirties, I started being invited to high-octane parties on my own merits rather than as a professional obligation. I attended starstudded weddings, charity auctions and awards ceremonies. I stalked Ethan Hawke, and met David Beckham, only to tell him I’d once been Posh in a Spice Girls tribute band (he was nice about it). In the Cotswolds, I met Tony Blair, David Cameron and Bono all in the same night. Blair and Bono were charm personified. Cameron? Not so much.
When a party is done well, it’s a brilliant mishmash of people you wouldn’t have otherwise met. That’s why it’s always worth saying ‘yes’ to an invitation, even if you’ll hardly know anyone there. I did this two Christmases ago and ended up meeting my now-boyfriend. We were introduced by the host at the party – the only person there I knew, who happened to be his sister. I spent the rest of the evening thinking up excuses to talk to him. As a result, this officially counts as the best party I’ve ever been to.
At a good party, there’s a sense that normal behavioural constraints are relaxed; a feeling that anything could happen. They’re great places to peoplewatch; you see the tension between who someone ‘is’ and who someone wants to ‘be’. I’ve witnessed the ‘quiet girl’ stripping to her underwear and dancing to Beyoncé, and the well-mannered boy skinnydipping in a pool in the early hours of the morning.
That’s why I chose to set my new novel at a party. The book’s action spans the course of one evening at a glittering 40th birthday in a stately home in the English countryside, when two friends are brought together and reveal dark truths about each other, with explosive results. I used a lot of my real-life party experiences in the novel, right down to the canapés (oysters shucked to order, miniature roast beef and Yorkshire puddings) and cocktails (lychee martinis and an endless supply of Veuve).
That’s not to say I’m a complete party convert. I still have the odd night where I feel nervous, and can’t think of anything to say. This happened at an event recently, where I felt everyone else was more successful and charming than me, and I couldn’t think of a single insightful comment. I was tired. I hadn’t nailed the dress code (I was overdressed; everyone else had gone slouchy cool), and although it was all probably in my head, I didn’t feel at ease.
One of the best things about being in my thirties is I no longer feel guilty about leaving a party when I want. I’ve been known to leave bad parties after 30 minutes, feeling relief at the idea of crawling under a duvet. It’s much easier to do than you think: either the host is too drunk to notice you going, or you say a polite goodbye and talk about having to be up early the next morning. That way, even bad parties turn out to be more fun than you anticipated. The most skilled partygoer knows how to pace herself. Besides, you need to conserve your energy for the next invitation. It might be the most fabulous one yet. The Party, by Elizabeth Day, is published on 13 July (4th Estate, RRP £12.99)