My petty gripe: don’t ask what my plans are, my New Year’s Eve is none of your business

Some people feel compelled to ride bikes, others mandated to hit the gym. Me? A compulsion to tell myself that I suck to be around.

I’m not going to stand here and say that self-hatred is unique to me. It’s just that it isn’t, until the last week of the year that I don’t feel entirely mawkish for admitting it. When I feel that others share my self-loathing, if only briefly. When a simple question leaves even the most lovable Lotharios spinning dark webs of utter BS.

“What are you doing for New Year’s Eve?”

Here’s a real human exchange that happens in lunchrooms around 28 December: “So Kenneth, what are you doing for New Year’s?”

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that if Kenneth hasn’t straight up frog-stomped your lunch in outrage, his response will fall into one of two buckets: goosing up plans so it doesn’t look like his year was spent selfishly, or goosing down, for equally inauthentic, equally human reasons.

Exhibit A looks something like: “What am I, the king of cool, doing for NYE!? Climbing Mount Everest with Greta Thunberg and the New York children’s choir of course! Haven’t you seen my Insta stories, BRO!?”

And Exhibit B is more: “It shall be a sombre occasion. We are holding a quiet vigil for my pet slug Dennis, who died of old juice 8 months ago.”

Either way Kenneth goes, his reply isn’t giving the truth: it’s as glib and insincere as a politician in question time.

So what to do when asked the dreaded question? That bottom-feeding succubus of a query? “What are you doing for New Year’s Eve?” My advice? Channel Jack Whitehall’s father and say: “None of your business!”