Auld Lyne SIGH December 8, 2007

So it happened by text today: the inevitable question: What are you doing for New Year’s Eve? I ignored the question…the friend in question text back telling me that: ignoring it doesn’t make it go away …and to get back to her when I got over myself.

I hate New Year’s Eve with a passion and with plenty of merit for doing so. It is the night you must spend a fortune to go somewhere you’d usually avoid; you must spend a  similar fortune on an outfit befitting the pressure of the occasion and as a single girl you, must, must, must find someone, anyone to kiss at the stroke of midnight otherwise you are destined for yet another romantically barren year.

Who ever decided that just a week after you’ve stuffed yourself silly on mulled wine and tins of Quality Street is the best time to go a-hunting? And despite the huge array of perfumed body products; potions and lotions we all got from well-meaning friends and relatives there are really only two scents on display: the scent of smugness (from those people already coupled-up) and that of sheer desperation.

My tales of New Years past read as the following horror story:

I admit they used to be nights of conquest: as an underage drinker this was the night you were “allowed” to snog as many boys as possible without being thought of as ’slutty’; the problem was, at 15 your social circle is ever so small and you had to face the people you (and let’s be frank every other girl in the place) had exchanged cider-fuelled saliva with, on that excruiating first day back at school.

There was  also the night, I was perhaps 17 when me and my drinking buddy Lisa, after six too many Goldschlagger fell over in the mud, in our formal dresses just as my Mum pulled up to take us home.

Unfortunately age and university failed to bring wisdom. I had bought a French Connection dress in the sales and decided to give it a virgin visit, that night, ‘New Year’s Eve at the Manhattan’ (this is not another- I love NYC moment but instead a ‘club’ in Belfast that defies explanation unless you’ve been there): first one strap of my dress broke and then the other; spending the stroke of midnight trying to cover your assets is not the happiest of hogmanies.

And even in more recent times; having missed the moment of midnight as I was dancing manically to Mr Brightside (having got bored of counting all the Bratz dolls lookalikes in this particular Belfast night spot) I decided to go to the bar to get a round of shots to recreate the moment (this is another New Year issue; its not acceptable to drink civilised wine over conversation, instead we have to drink cocktails and tequilia and other liver rupturing substances: its all about greasing the social skills and clouding the beer goggles enough to make capturing your kiss in anyway enjoyable); the bar was of course crowded  to the point of potential riot(another new year’s eve ritual), I somehow managed to escape the cascade of Guinness the guy beside me tried to drown me with. I struck up conversation with the seemingly cute blonde guy on my otherside (he may have been neither cute nor even blonde); Tony- my long suffering friend came to find me (and his drink) only to find me exchanging salvia with Mr Blonde: he gathered the group of ‘friends’ I’d come with and they applauded as my little floor show continued…

I tried last year to avoid it all, by going to a party at my friends’ house. No pressure, a little wine, a lot of champagne and absolutely no pressure, there would be no single men there that I would either have to endure being coupled up with, or snog relentlessly/ throw myself at, then have to avoid at breakfast. In my stupidity I hadn’t realised that this also meant that every other party guest were a couple. This meant at the moment of midnight I lwas left  holding the champagne glass and singing Auld Lyne Sang by myself.

So what’s a girl to do? How do I avoid the disasters of yesteryear and not have a new year’s eve I spend the rest of ‘08 trying to rectify? Staying in, in my pjs with a dvd looks more and more tempting…