Sorry I don't want to

Saying no without giving a convoluted reason

Getting old is a decidedly mixed bag. On the one hand, you’re suddenly invisible to men and on the other, you’re suddenly invisible to men. But there’s one positive that absolutely everyone gets to enjoy without any complicated feelings about their waning fuckability, and that is in saying no a lot. In my youth I said yes to to a lot of things I didn’t actually want to do simply because I didn’t want to miss out or come off as a buzzkill. But something cool happens as you age. One day, you find yourself saying no to something without giving a ridiculously convoluted excuse. You simply do not want to go to a theme park on a baking hot day and you no longer worry you’ll sound like an ungrateful bitch if you decline the invite. It’s really fucking great.* Here are the things I will not do now:

Camping. Admittedly I don’t think that sleeping on sweaty man-made fibres which don’t even bother to try and buffer the lumpen ground below was ever really my thing but now I’m old enough to say no to any camping offers which come my way without feeling bad. Again, not many camping offers are coming my way, because my friends know who I am, but the point still stands. And glamping is no better than it ought to be either. We all know it’s a gussied-up tent holiday no matter how many dream catchers or fairy lights they festoon the thing with. Grow up.

Brunch (and this might be divisive, but also plain old lunch). I don’t want to eat enormous plates of eggs at 11am and I definitely don’t want to chase those eggs with a garish cocktail. Brunch is inconvenient, drags on far too long and makes me feel sad. Lunch, I’m sorry to say, does the same. It’s right in the middle of the day! Every single thing I want to do with that time will be bisected by a meal I didn’t want. And because I’m old, if I drink more than one glass of wine then I feel like shit for the rest of the day so I can’t even cut loose. Don’t invite me to lunch.