New Years' Eve: I hate it

More exciting than Horlicks

NYE is renowned for being the 'Party Holiday' and being the cool young things that we are, this only adds to the pressure and expectations. Every year I think: This is the year. This is the year where I transform into a Megan Fox lookalike and strut into a Mayfair club with Akon singing 'Beautiful' directly to me as I enter. This is the year I'll spend cutting some Shakira moves on the dancefloor all the while swigging from a bottle of Dom Pèrignon before being whisked in for a firework-inducing kiss at midnight with the hottest male model/rock star/ billionaire in the club. However, instead my nights generally seem to end up with me and my friends swaying along to Auld Lang Syne in a local bar full of middle-agers jagerbombed up to the eyeballs because we spent so long squabbling about where to go that it was the only option left.

NYE comes with its fair share of difficulties:

• Firstly, the horrendous prices. I resent being made to pay £25 to get into a club that I got into for free last week to watch a Steps tribute band
• The divided loyalties: Your Grandma has invited you round to watch the fireworks on TV with a cup of Horlicks (which actually sounds quite nice...), your friends have scouted out a new club, but your boyfriend/girlfriend wants to go to a house party
• The alternative problem of not having anything to do and having to deal with sympathetic “Oh. Well I’m sure something will come up” responses from people you mistakenly tell.
• The issue of how to get wherever you are going. Public transport is always ram-packed, and considering NYE is meant to be a might of fun and friendship, isn’t it slightly detrimental to the cause when it is also he night that I hate people the most? They’re squashing their armpit into my face in the tube, taking up all of the taxis and using the crowds as an excuse to feel me up (please never make the mistake of going to the London fireworks).
• The there’s the forced joviality of it all, having to have a smile plastered on your face whilst forking out £25 to get into said awful club and having a drink spilled on you by someone who is paralytic by 10pm
• Finally there’s the pressure to find someone to kiss by the end of the countdown. By 11.57, will the pressure make you succumb to the –old-enough-to-be-your-Dad, slightly tubby, balding man who has been whispering “Hey baby, nice ass” whenever you walk past?

Oh, and then there’s the obligatory New Year’s Resolutions. This will, in fact, also be the year when you emerge from the cocoon of the last two decades into a beautiful butterfly. From New Year’s Day you will eat more healthily (translating as: 3am kebab and hangover fry-up), you will be more productive (recovering, sleeping, watching Jeremy Kyle), you will stop Facebook stalking (must...see...what...everyone...did...last.night) and you will budget your money better (actually, after last night, that one’s a definite keeper). So by 2pm on January 1st, you are no more of a butterfly than you were 24 hours ago and decidedly more worse for wear.

Even if you do decide to completely skip the holiday and have an early night, no-one else will allow you to. You will inevitably be woken up at midnight by fireworks and drunk neighbours doing the Conga down your street. In fact, I think we should all just take a leaf out of my Grandma’s book and make a pact to stay in and watch the fireworks in bed with a mug of Horlicks. Then at least we won’t have the competition of who’s having the most fun, and we might even secretly enjoy it.

Disagree with Jess? Check out Jason's view of New Year's Eve here

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