I’m a 16 year old girl and I don’t like parties. A bold statement, perhaps, for someone of my description - because when you hear something about the average girl in the latter half of her teenage years and parties I’m sure you picture a make-up plastered face attached to a body dancing to pop music with a red cup almost over-flowing with some type of alcoholic beverage. This certainly does hold truth in many cases, and, to a certain extent, even mine because you have to go to a few parties and embrace the atmosphere to decide you don’t like it.

Now, you’re probably thinking that I may be the type of person who doesn’t enjoy social events in general, the type of person who would choose a quiet night in over a fun night out. And that would certainly make life easier, because if I was that type of person maybe I wouldn’t be fooled into thinking, ‘well maybe this time I’ll have fun,’ every time a party invitation came my way. However I am not that type of person and I will take every opportunity to have a fun night out, so every time someone throws a party I tag along, bottle of WKD in hand, often feeling excited and optimistic about the evening ahead only to start complaining half-way through the night that I would rather be in bed.

So why is it that parties are up there with things I dislike, including (but not limited to) bees, parsnips and my sister’s taste in music? Let me explain;

1. I don’t like drunk people, or rather I don’t like seeing my friends, usually polite and respectable people, become drunken idiots. Take, for example, my boyfriend. Sober, he can maintain a perfectly intelligent and amusing conversation and refrain from inappropriate gestures. Yet when he gets drunk I end up with either an over-excited boy chugging as much alcohol as possible who occasionally acknowledges me with an untimely grope and a mispronunciation of my name or a mawkish mess who refuses to leave my side and just wants to apologise for every wrong doing he’s ever done.

2. The importance of alcohol is greatly exaggerated. Really what does anyone get out of it? A complete loss of inhibitions that leads to embarrassment and headaches. Yet people still insist on drinking it, and trying to get those who aren’t drinking any to join them. Quite frankly, I find alcohol over-priced and not particularly enjoyable. I’d rather over-eat some blue Smarties and get a sugar rush.

3. No one ever puts on decent music. If I wanted to listen to the same 5 chart songs over and over I’d do it in my own time. I mean I get that people may have a different taste in music to me, but even friends whose choice of music I normally regard above my own swap their personal playlists in favour of the few ‘party classics’ that get played on repeat at every party I’ve been to.

And honestly that’s just the start of the grievances that come with the ‘house party’. Don’t get me started on people being sick (and by people I mean my boyfriend who, after being sick into my cousin’s face, now has a reputation for puking) or couples making out in the corner or that one guy who decides to take his shirt off every damn time, otherwise I’d be writing for the rest of my life. Yet, will this stop me from attending the next party that shows itself? Probably not, as, at the end of the day, my boyfriend needs someone to look after him.