Party Animal

I don't have many friends. I never have.

It's not that I'm an unlikeable person, as far as I know (though plenty of people have taken against me for reasons I could never quite fathom). For me it's always been the crippling embarrassment caused by social situations. To me, a party is hell.

Let me set the scene.

My housemates flood in from work, quivering with excitement that finally it's Friday and we're free. Let's get the weekend started. Someone says 'I know a party we can go to in Dalston, it's my work husband's house, it's huge it'll be great. It's fancy dress though - maybe we can just go as carebears again!'

And so it begins. Usually it's indigestion-feeling, occasionally even small palpitations, or tight chestedness. It's the same procedure, everyone in and out of everyone's room, rifling through wardrobes and make up and accessories. I love these girls with every fibre I have but I fucking hate parties. Especially parties where we're dressed as bloody carebears.

My outift is Wish Bear, and I wish so hard that I knew how to be around people I didn't know. We're dolled up and already half drunk, jumping in a cab and then pouring out of it, drizzle landing on our carefully painted faces. I spent an hour on makeup that I fervently wish no one will look at, a little love heart stencilled on my nose to match my bright blue outfit with the star glued on the front.

We make an impact as we waltz in, two statuesque blondes and a pocket rocket brunette, and me, hovering at the back, stomach roiling.

Everyone heads to the kitchen to dump their drinks, shoving them in tiny cracks of space in the fridge, I hear a cork pop from another room and my heart pounds its response. Lucy pushes a drink into my hand, 'cheer up!'. So I down it, and another, and we head into the fray.

It's dark in the main room, full of shouting and laughing and people wearing ridiculous outfits. One man is wearing a binbag and another has a lightening bolt drawn on his forehead with eyebrow pencil. He's in my friend's band, he's the singer, but I don't talk to him. We dance to Mr Brightside, because it's practically party law, and we have more drinks. My friends are finding new people they've never met to talk to, and I look and look, but I don't understand how they are doing it, how they smile and laugh, how their conversation flows.

A man wearing a plastic horse head walks past.

I have to find a bathroom. Now.

I stumble up the stairs past people sitting on the steps, apologising, worrying I might smell bad and not realise, that they might laugh at my blue clad legs as I go. Two girls are coming out of a loo at the top of the stairs, glassy eyed and laughing hysterically, one of them sniffs twice and it couldn't be more obvious what they've been doing in there.

I lock myself in. Use the loo, and then sit on the lid, my face in my hands. The music downstairs pulses through the house, pulses like a heartbeat. I wonder how long I'll have before someone hammers on the door to come in. I look at all the shampoo bottles, at the dirty bathtub, in the bathroom cabinet full of boy products, razors with little flecks of hair stuck to them. I look at myself in the mirror, my stupid blue tipped nose. Why do I come to these? I can't bear it, the heat, the drunkenness, the writhing mass of people winding past and around each other, hands touching you and not knowing who owns them.

Eventually I am turfed out of my haven, and have to descend back down into the mix. It smells like sex down here, hot bodies, lust. I hate it, but I still want to be it. I want to be flirting with strangers, playing drinking games, kissing. But I can't. At least, not yet.

And so it goes, as it always does. Back to the kitchen, back to the drinks, until I'm so drunk I don't care. I can't find my bears, so I try and talk to lightening boy, ask him where they are, but he's drunk too. Our words make no sense, shouting noise into each other's ears. His breath is hot, sour sweet. He pulls me down into an armchair, kisses me with a hard mouth. I don't want to be here. His hands are everywhere, and I should be embarrassed, but the need to be wanted, liked, accepted, desired, it takes over. I find myself back in that bathroom, with him.

He doesn't ask for my number, afterwards.

My friends ask me later, when they find me asleep with the coats, hidden beneath them, what happened to my tights and I tell them I was just drunk. They don't understand why I act like this at parties. It's a trap I always fall into, drowning in fear of so many people, drowning in alcohol to blot them out, all the while just wanting to be one of them, but I can't. I don't know why.

So no, I don't have many friends. I never have.