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| How to say no at Christmas and get away with it | How to say no at Christmas and get away with it |
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| Fri 1 Dec 2017 14.00 GMT | |
| Last modified on Fri 1 Dec 2017 14.02 GMT | |
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| If this season seems tailored to stimulate the anxieties of Fomo sufferers – fear of missing out – it holds just as much horror for those with Dogi – dread of getting involved. They are pinged like pinballs from one question to which the answer is no, to another. Would you like to come to x, spend the evening at y, spend an entire day at the house of z, have another drink, have a mince pie, come in for mulled wine, taste my world-beating cake, join our secret Santa, take a look at my tree why dontcha? | If this season seems tailored to stimulate the anxieties of Fomo sufferers – fear of missing out – it holds just as much horror for those with Dogi – dread of getting involved. They are pinged like pinballs from one question to which the answer is no, to another. Would you like to come to x, spend the evening at y, spend an entire day at the house of z, have another drink, have a mince pie, come in for mulled wine, taste my world-beating cake, join our secret Santa, take a look at my tree why dontcha? |
| For some, all the true answers are “no”; others wouldn’t mind a qualified yes, but balk at the sheer scale of it all. Why can’t lunch just be lunch? Why does it have to be 15 hours? There is a subsection of questions to which the answer is “nothing” – what would you like for Christmas? What have you been up to all year? – and we’ll just have to resolve that another time. | For some, all the true answers are “no”; others wouldn’t mind a qualified yes, but balk at the sheer scale of it all. Why can’t lunch just be lunch? Why does it have to be 15 hours? There is a subsection of questions to which the answer is “nothing” – what would you like for Christmas? What have you been up to all year? – and we’ll just have to resolve that another time. |
| Just by the way, I am a no-er. I’m on the other side of the hedge altogether, making the demands and looking crestfallen when a person wants to catch the last tube. But only people who like to say “yes” can explain how to say “no” in a way that the “yessies” will understand, or at least accept. | Just by the way, I am a no-er. I’m on the other side of the hedge altogether, making the demands and looking crestfallen when a person wants to catch the last tube. But only people who like to say “yes” can explain how to say “no” in a way that the “yessies” will understand, or at least accept. |
| Probably the most common no/yes axis is drink: the season turns everyone into a problem drinker, exaggeratedly merry and unrestrained, except those who were problem drinkers already, who find it really annoying how hard it suddenly is to get to the bar. It is vital to the carnivalesque spirit that everyone joins in; otherwise the alcoholic bubble bursts and you’re just regular people, with regular livers, on a regular Tuesday night, with a regular wreck of a Wednesday coming. | Probably the most common no/yes axis is drink: the season turns everyone into a problem drinker, exaggeratedly merry and unrestrained, except those who were problem drinkers already, who find it really annoying how hard it suddenly is to get to the bar. It is vital to the carnivalesque spirit that everyone joins in; otherwise the alcoholic bubble bursts and you’re just regular people, with regular livers, on a regular Tuesday night, with a regular wreck of a Wednesday coming. |
| There is a well-known canon of excuses for teetotalism: I have a hangover; I’m on antibiotics (one from the eighties, there – most antibiotics are no longer incompatible with alcohol, but there is something about a social lie that doesn’t keep up with the times); my journey with booze has come to an end (I like the open-endedness of this: come to an end this week? Or come to an end for ever? Only an oaf would press the point); I have a big meeting tomorrow. All of these rely on the premise that you’re dealing with reasonable people, with a sense of accountability, who can understand cause and effect. | There is a well-known canon of excuses for teetotalism: I have a hangover; I’m on antibiotics (one from the eighties, there – most antibiotics are no longer incompatible with alcohol, but there is something about a social lie that doesn’t keep up with the times); my journey with booze has come to an end (I like the open-endedness of this: come to an end this week? Or come to an end for ever? Only an oaf would press the point); I have a big meeting tomorrow. All of these rely on the premise that you’re dealing with reasonable people, with a sense of accountability, who can understand cause and effect. |
| Don’t say goodbye. Everyone notices the person who’s the first to say goodbye | Don’t say goodbye. Everyone notices the person who’s the first to say goodbye |
| That is exactly the opposite of what you’re dealing with: a person like that wouldn’t be trying to get you drunk in the first place. A person like that would already have gone home. There is no reasoning with merry people, you cannot appeal to their wisdom. You just have to pretend that the drink in your hand, whatever it is, has vodka in it. Carry two drinks to ram home just how thirsty you are. | That is exactly the opposite of what you’re dealing with: a person like that wouldn’t be trying to get you drunk in the first place. A person like that would already have gone home. There is no reasoning with merry people, you cannot appeal to their wisdom. You just have to pretend that the drink in your hand, whatever it is, has vodka in it. Carry two drinks to ram home just how thirsty you are. |
| At some point in the evening, your sobriety will start to emit a high-pitched warning noise to other people, who somewhere in the ever-dimmer caves of their consciousness will notice that you’re not slurring or repeating yourself. Five minutes before that point, you have to leave. Don’t say goodbye. Everyone notices the person who’s the first to say goodbye; nobody in the history of the social human has ever noticed what time one person disappeared. | At some point in the evening, your sobriety will start to emit a high-pitched warning noise to other people, who somewhere in the ever-dimmer caves of their consciousness will notice that you’re not slurring or repeating yourself. Five minutes before that point, you have to leave. Don’t say goodbye. Everyone notices the person who’s the first to say goodbye; nobody in the history of the social human has ever noticed what time one person disappeared. |
| Refusing food, even though it should be a universal human right not to eat something you don’t fancy, is somehow even more freighted and emotional. There is a sense of collective responsibility, here – look, none of us like mince pies, all of us would rather not have this oppressive feeling of baked goods backing right up to our oesophaguses, but we all take it for the team. | Refusing food, even though it should be a universal human right not to eat something you don’t fancy, is somehow even more freighted and emotional. There is a sense of collective responsibility, here – look, none of us like mince pies, all of us would rather not have this oppressive feeling of baked goods backing right up to our oesophaguses, but we all take it for the team. |
| Demurring is like freeloading on other people’s sense of duty. Just eat it. Even having to explain this is making me want to eat a Celebration, just to prove it’s not that big a deal in the service of harmony. Again, the answer is never to find more inventive ways of saying no; being gluten-free or on a diet just compounds the original offence. It’s better to just have something in your mouth that makes it impossible to put anything else in, like chewing gum, or a cigarette, or a party horn. | Demurring is like freeloading on other people’s sense of duty. Just eat it. Even having to explain this is making me want to eat a Celebration, just to prove it’s not that big a deal in the service of harmony. Again, the answer is never to find more inventive ways of saying no; being gluten-free or on a diet just compounds the original offence. It’s better to just have something in your mouth that makes it impossible to put anything else in, like chewing gum, or a cigarette, or a party horn. |
| When it comes to social events, there are none of these easy fixes: unavoidably, if you don’t go, even if you’ve said you’re going to, people will notice you’re not there. In the olden days, anyone who hated hanging out with their families would volunteer for Shelter. It’s a double-edged sword for the charity: they get a lot of brand recognition (ha! Take that, RSPCA. Nobody’s sitting round discussing your good works over Christmas dinner, while they mourn the absence of uncle Tim). But they’re also becoming a little jaded, and now I believe you have to volunteer for the whole three days if you want to hitch yourself to their apple-wagon. | When it comes to social events, there are none of these easy fixes: unavoidably, if you don’t go, even if you’ve said you’re going to, people will notice you’re not there. In the olden days, anyone who hated hanging out with their families would volunteer for Shelter. It’s a double-edged sword for the charity: they get a lot of brand recognition (ha! Take that, RSPCA. Nobody’s sitting round discussing your good works over Christmas dinner, while they mourn the absence of uncle Tim). But they’re also becoming a little jaded, and now I believe you have to volunteer for the whole three days if you want to hitch yourself to their apple-wagon. |
| You can always be the person who goes to Bali for the whole fortnight, then stay indoors. It’s like the premise for an afternoon drama on Radio 4, rife with risk and potential for mishap. But definitely have a go if you think you’re crafty enough. | You can always be the person who goes to Bali for the whole fortnight, then stay indoors. It’s like the premise for an afternoon drama on Radio 4, rife with risk and potential for mishap. But definitely have a go if you think you’re crafty enough. |
| • Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist | • Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist |
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