Teetotal Christmas party

I don’t drink at all. This is perfectly normal. To me. I grew up in a family of non-drinkers, my old best friends hardly drank and my best friend from university didn’t drink. I live happily in a non-drinking bubble, only occasionally colliding with the drinking world. And when I do, it leaves me unsettled. Am I wrong, or are the drinking majority wrong? Or are we all right in our own way?

I don’t go out much. This is mainly because I am a 38 year old mum of three. To go out, you need someone to look after the kids, and you need to be in a fit state to look after them yourself in the morning. I have no experience of hangovers, but I know that I wouldn’t want to go to bed at 3am, even sober, when I have to be up with the kids at 6.

The other reason I don’t go out is because I don’t drink. If I know people are going to be drinking, I tend to stay away. I have no problem with people drinking, I just don’t necessarily want them drinking near me.

I missed my work Christmas do yesterday because I had already arranged to go out with my old friends. If I hadn’t arranged to go out with my friends, would I have gone out on the work Christmas do? I’m not sure. Maybe, maybe not. But if I had, I would most certainly have left before the conversations got confusing.

Tonight it was my husband’s work do. My husband’s company is one of the few left in the whole world that invites partners out on the work Christmas do – and even pays for them.

Being a very sensible type, some years ago I decided not to waste money on party clothes. What is the point in spending 40 or 50 quid on a dress you only wear once? Not to mention shoes to go with it. My wardrobe is full of good quality casual clothes which work for every situation. Apart from Christmas parties.

I have a sparkly jacket for Christmas parties I bought three or four years ago. For my husband’s do I intended to wear it with a dress I bought for a wedding a couple of years ago. The whole look is not me, but it’s just what you have to do at Christmas. But my husband suggested I wear a shirt dress instead. Casual, but not quite as casual as my usual jeans and hoodies. I have nothing to wear with it. So I buy a chunky grey cardigan, which I can wear with my jeans and Tshirts afterwards. I look fairly cool, but in no way Christmassy.

So we go to the Christmas do, and I am chatting to people. But as the wine flows, my conversation feels more and more boring and further detached from what everyone else is talking about. After six people have congratulated me on keeping my job and I have told them my babysitting arrangements for the evening, no-one is interested in me. And I have no way of breaking the ice with people who are already well on their way to being drunk. The more they drink, the less I talk.

We leave the restaurant and go to a strangely quiet bar. I have a conversation and suddenly I’m not having a conversation any more. Everyone is on their second drink within 10 minutes. There are groups of chatty excitable people on either side of me. How do the girlfriends know the admin staff? They all seem to be getting on so well together. Why don’t I know them??

I stand there in my cool grey cardigan and I feel frumpy, stupid, boring and completely out of place. I down the remainder of my mineral water and announce that I am going home. It is 10.15pm.

I don’t even have the ‘got to get back for the kids’ excuse. The kids are all staying with grandparents and aunties. This is something that never happens. I could have gone clubbing. I could have come in at 3 or 4am. But I came in at 10.15 because I don’t drink and I felt stupid, boring and frumpy.