Dinner parties, and other middle-class myths

Things we all think other people are doing – but they’re not

You may have been shocked to learn that the respectable middle classes are all taking cocaine at dinner parties. I know!

Dinner parties? Are people really still having those? Once in a while someone will ring and ask if you want to come over for, “you know, a drink and a bit of food” – but hardly ever. And no one uses the words “dinner party”, because the DP went out with rag-rolling. The last place on earth you want to be in the autumn of 2018, even with the assistance of class A drugs, is a dinner party.

Which is why, I would wager, the existence of the dinner party has been greatly exaggerated. It is one of those things we’re supposed to be doing – and we’re told that everyone is doing – when actually no one really is.

Other misconceptions in this vein include...

We’re all talking about sex, including each other’s fantasies

As in, I’m the haughty Home Secretary, you’re the Scottish bodyguard, call me Ma’am and say “joooty”? It is possible that people are choreographing their sexual fantasies, rather than just getting their heads down, so to speak, in the arrow slit of opportunity between last phone check of the night and passing out, but we have yet to meet one. All the people we know are amazed if they have any sex at all, other than in air-conditioned rooms on holiday when they’ve had plenty of rest, not too much to eat or drink, and there’s nothing on TV.

Everyone else has delightful children who are a credit to their parents

Yes, theirs volunteered in Burkina Faso, had a charity job all the way through university and always engage adults in interesting conversation. So charming. Then one of yours sees one of theirs at a festival and they are selling 12 kinds of narcotics and a ground-to-air missile out of their dad’s bell tent.

Most women our age are serene and content (because we have reached That Stage)

No. They Are On Pills. Also worth bearing in mind that just because others do not enter a room wailing about their useless millennial children and the cost of plumbers, it doesn’t mean they are not losing it in their own way. Many people are silently inwardly screaming.

Everyone is cooking imaginative recipes

Yes, but only when you’re looking. The Ottolenghi smorgasbord they rustle up when you pop round (for a NOT dinner party) is showing off. On a normal night they do what you do: buy a chicken the day before. Realise it’s too late to roast a chicken. Dash to Tesco for sausages, decide that would be three processed meat nights on the trot, so instead buy pasta sauce and a lettuce.

Everyone has a smoothrunning domestic system

It is true that many people know where the insurance form is and remember all their passwords, and where they put the radiator key. But, sometimes, even the masters of the universe mess up badly. Look closer and you will discover they are the ones who miss flights.

Everyone always has the right thing to wear

Not the spectacular stuff, just a really good trouser suit from Zara, a sweater and some ankle boots, none of which we saw when we went in. Some women are gifted shopping hounds. But most of us wear 20 per cent of the clothes we own, have no idea what else is in the closet, and almost never have the right thing to wear. Every morning we think: “Why have I got 14 pairs of black trousers and literally no tops? What’s Wrong With Me?”

Statistically, we are the norm.

The last place you want to be in the autumn of 2018 is a dinner party