My first proper party since March 2020

It’s been a busy weekend. Almost like a weekend in the Before Times. On Friday night, I went to my first proper party since March 2020. It was my friend Mary’s fiftieth and it was fancy dress. The theme was Cabaret. Mary, who is one of those rare and sickening people who actually used lockdown for self-improvement, showed off her new killer thighs by dressing as Sally Bowles (Liza Minelli-era). Having absolutely failed to spend the last year and a half preparing to wear a leotard in public, I went old school, dressing as Fraulein Schneider in an improvised get-up that involved three grey cardigans. It was clear that most people thought I hadn’t bothered to get dressed up at all, but at least having to explain my costume meant that I ended up having a lot of interesting conversations.

I say “interesting”, but I get the feeling that despite having been released from social restrictions on Bojo’s much-vaunted “freedom day” way back in the early summer, most of us are still finding it hard to regain our party mojo. I wasn’t the only person who hadn’t been to a proper party in more than 18 months. To be in a room with so many other people still felt faintly transgressive; as though we were in a speakeasy in 1920s New York and the police might come storming in at any moment. We rushed to tell each other what had happened since we last met – in my case, not a lot – talking over each other in our haste to get our stories out before someone implements Plan C. It was as if we had forgotten how to pace a conversation without the use of that little “hand-up” icon on group chat. Perhaps every in-person gathering going forward should involve a conch, Lord of the Flies-style.

“You know,” said Mary’s sister Jade, when we found ourselves together at the buffet (A buffet! Whoever thought they would be back?), “I’ve been dreading this party. It was bliss not to have to do anything other than pull on a cardigan and watch telly every night for months on end.”

“I’m sticking with my cardigans,” I joked.

“Yes,” said Jade, in a way that suggested she hadn’t done her Cabaret homework before squeezing into the chorus girl costume her sister had made her wear. I explained my character one more time.

There was one big difference between my experience of Mary’s party and the last party I attended – a leaving do upstairs at the Groucho. Mary’s party was awash with cocktails but I stuck to the non-alcoholic kind. Sober October is over but I’ve decided to stick with the “not drinking” thing for as long as I can stand it. I find that once I’ve turned down the first drink, it’s easy to turn down a second. By the time everyone else is onto their third, they’ve given up asking why you’re being such a killjoy and started telling you things they really shouldn’t about their boyfriend, boss or brother. And you can just nod along and feel hugely smug that the person waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night thinking “did I really say that?” won’t be you. For once.

Yep. Not drinking seems to suit me. Though I still haven’t lost the weight everyone on the internet swears is the inevitable side effect.

I stayed at Mary’s party until the hostess herself curled up on top of the bar like a dormouse and fell asleep. I felt a pang of envy as her husband tenderly detached the false eyelash that had drifted down her face and attached itself to her upper lip. That’s true love. My ex-husband Gideon would definitely have taken a photograph of me looking like I had a moustache and posted it on Facebook. However I didn’t let that envy eat me up as it once might have done because for the first time in a long time, I was feeling quite hopeful about the possibilities of love.

I had completely forgotten that back in the summer Mum gave my phone number to her Lake District holiday friends so that they could set me up with their newly-single son, Robert. His text came as something of a surprise.

“I hope you don’t mind me texting out of the blue,” he began. He reminded me of the context and invited me for coffee. “This Saturday? Somewhere convenient to you?”

Reader, I googled him. He didn’t obviously look like a weirdo. Encouraged by my best friend Liz, I decided I might as well give it a whirl.

“What are you going to wear?” Liz asked, when she called first thing Saturday for a debrief on Mary’s party. Liz had not attended. She couldn’t come up with a costume, so instead pretended to have received a call from Track and Trace telling her to self-isolate.

In the spirit of looking like I’d made an effort but not that much of an effort (first date rules), I pulled together a combo of jeans, nice top and the least worst of the previous night’s three cardigans. The great thing about going out in the 21st century is that you don’t come home smelling of cigarettes and can thus get away with that sort of move.

I picked Megan’s On The Common for our rendezvous. The seating there is all outdoors. These days when you’re planning to meet people, you have to take into account their covid-risk preparedness. I didn’t want to force anyone to sit inside if they didn’t want to. Plus, it meant I could keep my puffa jacket on if Robert’s outfit made my “not much of an effort” cardigan look like “absolutely no effort at all”.

He looked great. I kept my coat on. But astonishingly, the coffee date went well and at the end of it he asked if we might meet again the following Saturday.

“Well, actually,” I admitted. “Next Saturday is my birthday.”

I didn’t tell him it was a big birthday.

“If you don’t already have a date that night, perhaps I could take you out to dinner,” he said.

Things are looking up.