After one too many humiliations, I turned down the invitations, gave up the booze and learned to accept myself

I’m not entirely sure when I decided I should stop going to parties. To eschew dos, drinks things, screenings, soirees and shindigs. It might have been the time, at a fancy dress party, that I found myself telling a complete stranger how, when I was wearing a costume like theirs, I wet myself after underestimating the time to take off the outfit. (A straitjacket, if you’re interested.)

Or it might have been the time I actually wet myself.

That, of course, is not to be confused with the time, at another party, that I threw up in a sink, before realising that the host had just prepared a fresh bowl of punch in said sink. As I said at the time, it was a dumb place to leave a bowl of punch even temporarily, but I was never going to win that argument – or the subsequent kerfuffle in which I argued that if either of us should leave, it should really be him.

It might even have been a time when there weren’t body fluids involved but famous folk instead: Julianna Margulies in New York, Andrew Lloyd Webber in Belgravia, the Queen at Holyrood Palace. (You’re not allowed to touch the Queen, apparently.)

Or it could have been one of the countless occasions at which there were merely embarrassments and humiliations (major, minor and imagined) that were endured as I thought I ought to enjoy parties and maybe I wasn’t making enough of an effort to be effervescent. Or it might have been one of the times – inevitable at my age – when I’ve walked into a party to be greeted by an ex, or worse still, an ex and their new partner. Being gregarious or egregious may feel like particularly effective defence mechanisms in the moment, but those times when I thought I was hiding my damage? It was the only thing that others could see, probably visible from space.

So, after one particular fete worse than death, I stopped going to parties. No more plucking prosecco off silver salvers, spilling little bowls of risotto down myself and/or soap stars, playing informal but high-stakes games of hide and seek with people who, for reasons all too easy to fathom, didn’t like me very much. Enough was enough.

On the rare occasion that I actually get invited to things these days, I usually decline. Now, the nicest time I can imagine is sitting on the sofa with a friend, eating pizza and watching Star Trek: Discovery (again) or the Ustinov version of Evil Under the Sun (again).

I was reflecting on all this recently at a party. A really swanky annual event, always in a lux London hotel and seriously star-studded. I’ve been several times but this year, probably for the first time, I really enjoyed myself. I did not think this was possible at a party. And yet there I was. This is no reflection on the occasion’s previous iterations – objectively, it is one of the best parties you could go to – but there was something different this year. Obviously I couldn’t just feel happy and sense enjoyment and not analyse why. What was different? What had changed? That would be me.

The main difference was that I wasn’t trying to have fun. I spent the evening talking to people I like – people I love – and having interesting, engaging chats with people I barely knew. I wasn’t in pursuit of validation from strangers. I didn’t need to put others down to make myself feel better because I felt fine. Fundamentally, my motivations for going to the party were different. For me, if my motivation is wrong, whatever I end up doing is contaminated by that. Fruit from the poisonous tree, so to speak.

Also, I don’t drink any more. All of this means that now, I’m something I rarely was: I was present. I still find it tricky but like everything worthwhile, it takes practice. And here is the thing that is crucial to me: I don’t think of it as a change that I made, but one that is happening.

Now I look back at previous parties and I can make light of them, package them as anecdotes, so they can sound almost harmless, my trials trivial. But at the time, they were awful. Feeling like an alien in a person suit is not a nice way to be. It’s lonely, relentless and exhausting – and blimey, I was angry. I still feel like that sometimes, but not as much as I used to. I hold on to the new me, who only goes to parties for the right reason. Because, for me, change is a process and not an event. Which is just as well, seeing as events and I aren’t great mixers.

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