What is the etiquette when?

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Now this isn’t as bad as it sounds, but the other weekend I was very nearly unwittingly involved in a ménages a trois. Unwittingly I hear you ask skeptically? How can you be unwittingly involved in a threesome? Surely a certain amount of lucidity (no matter how drunk you might be) is required for such a situation? You can’t just ‘accidentally’ invite two men back to your flat and…

…well, I’ve got news for you friends, you can if you’re me. I have always had a problem when it comes to noticing people’s ‘romantic’ advances, I prefer to err on the side of caution and just assume they are being friendly. Sometimes, as you can imagine, this has led to difficulties.

2 AM – Friday night – somewhere on St John’s Hill

So here we are. 31 years of emotional ignorance have led us to this point. It’s 2 am. We are on the rampage for more booze. Every sensible drinker is either in a club or tucking into some filthy takeout. Man 1 suggests that Man 2 goes home with my friend whilst he accompanies me home (it’s dangerous out there you know, lots of people on the prowl for impressionable ‘young’ girls). That’s silly, I think to myself. We’re all looking for a drink. We should all go back together, makes perfect sense to me. My naïve night-vision eyes blink like Bambi in the streetlights. At this point my friend decides she’s had quite enough and is going to throw me to the wolves and go back to her flat alone. She has a lot to do in the morning (or some such shit). Still blissfully unaware of my predicament I offer up some booze at my house. Any takers? Yes, apparently 2 takers. Jolly good. You, dear reader, can no doubt see where this is going, but I was genuinely still none the wiser. Man 1 looks a little disgruntled perhaps, but I don’t notice. Man 2 then asks me if I want him to leave. This seems a bit suspicious. I just invited them back, why would I want him to leave? Hmm… the plot thickens.

La la la, isn’t it nice in my little world? All sugar-plum fairies riding around on apple-cheeked My Little Ponies and plenty of free-flowing elderflower champagne. Hoorar! No late-night binges, no dirty kebabs and certainly no boys on the prowl for drunken sex. HEAVEN FORBID!

I don’t know why I’m so clueless about such things, I just always have been. It’s not like I grew up in an Amish community or anything. I’m a country girl, yes, but there was plenty of illicit teenage drinking and rolling around in haystacks – it’s just I probably missed it on account of my hay fever and late blooming issues. While everyone else was getting felt up in the barn I was still wearing vests and getting excited about gymkhanas and ice-cream in a little Enid Blyton world all of my own. Sweet really. Unfortunately, this does not equip me to deal effectively with the Noel Coward farce that is unfolding in front of me at 2am on a Sat night in my sitting room.

Back in the real world Man 2 makes a drunken bid to crash out in my bed whilst Man 1 is thinking about a quick fondle in the sitting room. It’s an in-one-door-out-another, more tea vicar? nightmare of my own making. I quickly realize that without the correct management this situation could find me very out of my depth indeed. I toy with the idea of feigning sickness, perhaps I could have an epileptic fit of some kind? Or maybe I’ve had a family emergency and need to leave? No, that’s stupid. I live here. I’m not leaving. But I can hardly ask them to leave either, I just invited them. It’s like that old law about vampires. If I get bitten here I’ll have no one to blame but myself. Oh dear.

Fortunately I manage to placate Man 1 with some (of all things) smoked mackeral pate (true story and slightly grim if you think about it. I’ll leave it there I think). Man 1 is then jovially yet forcefully evicted from my boudoir. Trouble is, now what?

Fortunately Man 1 has passed out on the sofa. That’s easy. I know the answer to this one. Throw a woolly rug over him and let him wake up cold and confused in the morning. This is usually enough to ensure that any drinking guest will leave pretty quickly under their own steam in the wee small hours. Unfortunately this is no ordinary situation and I have Man 2 to deal with. So, of course, I put him on the other sofa - all boys together, kind of like a piss-head’s dormitory. Lovely.

“Right, ok then. Night-night.”

See ya. I have absolutely NO INTENTION of getting up in the morning to deal with this. This is definitely a situation for my flat-mate to sort. After all, it can’t be worse than the time I brought that taxi driver home to talk about ‘problems in di black community’… can it?

No, of course not. As predicted Man 1 felt the cold shame of dawn, woke up in his clothes on a strange sofa and left sharpish. Man 2 was very polite and had to rush off to “see a man about a washing machine” – fair enough, more plausible than my epileptic fit at least.

Disaster averted then. No sordid threesome. The gentlemen drinkers have left quietly, leaving me free, at last, to play with my Care Bears and go to the park on my bike to test out my new spokey-dokeys. Awesome.

There’s no hope for me. There really isn’t.