Hold your head up high

Parties are breeding grounds for embarrassing blunders. Cope with the worst of them with Life Coach Caro Handley’s tips

Let’s face it; we’ve all done it, haven’t we? Made a real prat of ourselves at a party. Who hasn’t had a few too many, fallen over, thrown up, said the wrong thing to the wrong person or had a snog with someone they’d never normally look at twice?
And who hasn’t woken up the next day with a crashing hangover and groaned, ‘I didn’t, did I?’

Getting it wrong, or feeling that you did, is more common than ever nowadays, because there aren’t any clear rules for social occasions any more. A few years back (well, quite a few) you knew what you should wear, eat, drink and do at any kind of party. Now it’s a lot less clear, and while that may seem liberating, it’s also a breeding ground for social blunders. Because the truth is that there are still rules, but most of us don’t know it until we’ve stumbled upon them.

With Christmas fast approaching and the party season in full swing, it really pays to get your ground rules clear and decide how you’re going to handle each different type of social event.

Navigate the party season and come out in one piece

Divide your parties into categories. There are the ones with people you work with, the formal ones, the ones with non-work people who you don’t know well or need to stay on the right side of (such as in-laws), and then there are the parties where you can really relax, with close friends.