Now the time has come to talk about dinner parties – a dinner party.

Is it? is it really necessary to talk about dinnerparties, you ask curiously and slightly suspiciously. Yes, it is.

Dinner or party?

Dinnerparty, the word that is the ultimate oxymoron contradicts itself to the core. For it isn’t really dinner and even less of a party. Fact.

Yet, one gets invited every once in a while for such a festive occasion, and for some inexplicable reason sometimes one actually attends such a dinner slash party.

Why would someone do such a senseless thing, you may ask. The truth is, nobody really knows.

Because of the very nature of this ghastly phenomenon, no one in their right mind should even consider accepting an invitation.

Here goes

To start with, the food that is served during these dinners is not at all meant to cater to your taste, nor is it meant to fill your stomach satisfactorily. It is either meant to show off the culinary skills of the host/ hostess OR -even worse- to show they are wealthy enough to hire a chef. The courses consist of exotic dishes.

What is it with that obsession with those dishes nobody eats on a normal day? Dishes like quayles, their eggs, snails, and oysters, which are basically snot in a shell. All these dishes are mercifully served in small portions, on ugly, but expensive decorated plates- accompanied by some pretentious little red wine nobody ever heard of- let alone know how to pronounce. Lighting is done mostly with candles, because, you know, every bloody dinner party, there is a power cut.

But that is not the worse part of these “parties”. Oh no. The thing is, that the etiquette of these little nocturnal get-togethers prescribes that you may not sit beside someone you know (like your own wife, for instance), or someone you like- but instead of the most logical thing to do, you are seated next to a complete stranger. All evening. Need I say more?

Yes, I do. I really do.

What comes next?

Because there is a reason this person next (or opposite) to you is a complete stranger, there is a reason why you never met him or her. It’s because, in most cases, they are boring as hell. Halfway through the evening every sane person regrets ever opening the mail two weeks earlier. Because as a result of reading the blasted invitation, and thinking against their better judgment that it would be nice to go out, he or she is now reduced to stick a fork in his/her upper leg, just to stay awake.

Now I know it’s almost impossible to find somebody as interesting, intelligent, and witty as you think you are yourself. But must other guests really be that uninteresting, uninspired, and definitely mind-numbingly dull? I mean, the level of sheer stupidity you find in these people you meet there is sometimes more terrifying than watching the Hannibal trilogy with your psychopathic, homicidal neighbor.

In short, I think the so-called dinner party is what Catholics know as limbo- the front porch of hell. You are punished, but you have no clue whatsoever for what exactly. Sure, you’re human, so you make mistakes, but are they THAT bad?

That’s…

Then it hits you; it is your own damn fault because you accepted the invitation.

So my advice to you, dear reader, would be; if you receive an invitation to some dinner party, throw it in the bin. Burn it. Ignore it. Rip it up, tear it into little pieces. Swallow it. Do whatever you like with it- anything. But do not, I repeat; do NOT, under any circumstance, accept.

It is much better for your own mental well-being. Believe me…