I send a text message.

“I am now going to be about this weekend. Is it still OK to come to your do?”

It was a friend’s 30th birthday, and I had previously made plans which meant I could not make his party. But those plans changed (I was not rain-checked, and anyone who says I was is… etc etc), and so I was now going to be in attendance. I then set about arranging to car share with my ex-flatmate, and whilst on the phone I asked, “There isn’t a theme or anything is there?”

“No.” he confidently answered (this is important, remember this bit).

As we pulled into the rugby club venue I noticed something awry. Just about every person we saw was dressed as if they had stepped out of the Wild West, which as everyone knows was full of cowboys, Native Americans (which were called ‘Indians’ in those days. I know!) and inflatable horses.

My first thought was that this was such a shame, that my friend should have his party gatecrashed by the local camp line-dancing troupe. Then I noticed a mutual friend dressed like a cowboy, and he is a rubbish line dancer, which could mean only one thing. He had been taking line dancing lessons! What better way to announce your exit from the closet than at a friends 30th birthday party?

Alas, it turned out that he had not, and as we walked into the bar a number of heads turned to greet us. I had that horrible feeling you get when you dream that you have turned up to school without any underpants (before you realised such an action was actually liberating and perfectly normal, no matter what anyone says).

It was clear that people thought I could not be bothered to dress up, and I hate people thinking I am a party-pooper. I am not. I definitely would have dressed up, and it would have been the best costume at the party, obviously. But I did not know about it and when I challenged my ex-flatmate, and now borderline ex-friend, his response was a half-hearted, “Meh.”

He was clearly not bothered by our plight, but it is very hard to convince impressionable young ladies to sleep with you when they are in a room full of cowboys, and you and not dressed like a cowboy. Even my explanation that “this is what cowboys dress like nowadays, I am a chronologically up-to-date cowboy” fell upon deaf ears.

Still, on the bright side, I did not feel like an utter twat when we went to a nightclub later.

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