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PARTY PHOBICS

IS IT too ‘bah, humbug’ to admit relief that tomorrow will be the last pop of the party season? To confess that I am looking forward to a bracing New Year’s Day walk as much as any Hogmanay stiffener?

I used to be a pro at partying, but really, how much enthusiasm can anyone aged beyond 35 be expected to muster for a Tuesday night in Britain in December?

Recently, I had a shindig to attend on a cold, dark, rainy, winter weeknight. I was late getting ready, then woefully disappointed by my footwear options. By the time I reached the bathroom mirror, the party was already in full swing, 45 minutes away. I put in contact lenses, reached for my make-up bag, then decided instead to run the kids’ bath and change back into jeans.

An hour later, I was curled-up on the sofa, not regretting my lassitude but for the waste of a pair of contact lenses. For, as glorious as it is to come in from the cold to the warm cheer of a festive party, it can also be cocklewarming simply to hibernate. At this time of year, I often feel as much in common with shy, retiring types as with besequinned extroverts.

Levin, in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, might be my kind of party guy. He prefers the country to the city, his library to the social whirl. When his first proposal of marriage to Kitty is rejected, he retreats to his estate. Later, however, after she accepts and they are married, he rediscovers his sociability.

There is a nod to Tolstoy’s War And Peace in the opening party scene of Diana Evans’s Ordinary People. Londoners Melissa and Michael are not party-phobes but the disconnect between them as they attend a 2008 party to celebrate Obama’s presidential victory speaks volumes about the state of their union.

Of all the party animals in literature, none seems as representative of the tongue-tied wallflower constituency as the drowsy dormouse at the Mad Hatter’s eternal tea party in Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland.

If you find yourself surrounded by gratingly mad-for-it types tomorrow evening, then follow his lead — and try to opt out.