These last two comics were based off the same awkward party experience and made within 12 hours of each other; the former, shortly upon returning home in a drunken stupor with the flippancy that only vodka can bring, and the latter the morning after, once shame and the hangover had kicked in.

I’m at a point now where I can deal with parties without wanting to disappear into a crack in the wall and become part of the insulation, but at my worst, large social gatherings just made me feel the emotional equivalent of being set on fire. It’s either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid that I kept going to them. An average schedule of my party-going experience:

9:00 PM: Arrive.
9:15 PM: Complete greeting and catching up with the handful of people you know.
9:17 PM: Stand gawkily clutching a cup of fruity alcohol, staring at it like it’s the most interesting thing in the world.
9:18 PM: Resolve to discover a conversation you can easily enter.
9:20 PM: Down your cup and refill.
9:23 PM: Introduce yourself to someone.
9:24 PM: Quickly realise you have no idea how to participate in a conversation. You moron. What did you expect? That you’d just be able to act like a ‘normal person’? Who the hell are you kidding?
9:25 PM: Flush with shame as the other person breaks from your awkward eye contact and moves onto better prospects.
9:26 PM: Sear their look of disgust into your brain forever.
9:27 PM: Feel as if everyone’s eyes are stabbing into you as punishment for this murder of an interaction.
9:28 PM: Everyone is talking to somebody else, and is having much more fun than they ever would with you, which they are screaming at you through osmosis.
9:29 PM: Realise that there are a lot of people here, and they are all without fail doing this.
9:30 PM: Feel sweaty and short of breath.
9:31 PM: Convince yourself that locking yourself in the bathroom and crying for a few minutes will expel all this negativity from you and leave you pristine. You are a dirty sponge that just needs to be wrung out.
9:32 PM: Queue for the bathroom.
9:40 PM: The queue for the bathroom has not shortened because the people in there are snorting coke off of the sink. You’ve never done coke. Does coke calm you down? Is becoming a coke addict a viable form of self-care? No, you idiot. Run back to the kitchen for any booze you can find.
9:41 PM: Concoct a cocktail that is 90% alcohol and 10% mixer. Immediately chug.
9:42 PM: Despair when this weirdly makes you feel worse instead of miraculously fixing all of your problems.
9:45 PM: Put your coat on and leave, silently heaving from crying so hard the entire way home. Nobody notices or cares.

If I’m feeling particularly efficient, these events can be condensed into thirty minutes! Plus, now I’ve just saved £80 on not going out! Who says being mentally ill makes you useless?