Have you got FOFOPOCO*? (*that’s Fear Of Far-Off Postcodes)

It doesn’t matter how extravagant a party is — if it means changing three times on the Tube then you can count me out, says Laura Freeman
Francesca Allen
Laura Freeman1 December 2016

A creamy envelope waits on the hall table. There’s a first-class stamp on the outside and tissue paper inside. In a fine, curling script are the words: ‘We request the pleasure of your company…’

It takes no more than a few seconds for me to open, read and consider my RSVP. On the walk up the stairs to my flat I mentally compose a reply — ‘Alas, terribly busy. Sorry to miss it’— and, decision made, I chuck the card straight into the recycling.

Show me your best party tricks. Send me Christmas and New Year invitations on stiff white cards with gold around the edges. Fill the envelopes with snowflake sequins. Promise me Champagne and mulled wine, chocolate fountains and guest DJs, fancy dress and designer goodie bags. Say there’ll be celebrity guests and kisses under the mistletoe. Say it’ll be the best night of my life, say that everyone who’s anyone on Instagram will be there. Offer me canapés by the Hemsley sisters and Sipsmith sloe gin by the bottle. Offer me gold, frankincense and myrrh for all the good it will do. But there’s only one thing I look for on an invitation as I decide my RSVP: the postcode.

You know FOMO? That nagging Fear Of Missing Out because you’re stuck at a dud party in Holborn when there’s a storm of a bash in Kentish Town? And FOGO? The Fear Of Going Out when you might be hygge and cashmered at home? Well, I’ve got FOFOPOCO. That is: Fear Of Far-Off Postcodes. The moment an invitation arrives in my inbox or on the doormat I scan to the bottom for the address. Soho? Yes, I’d love to. Notting Hill? Yes, please. East Croydon? Terribly sorry, prior engagement to hoover the flat.

It’s not that I dislike parties full stop, just boondocks parties, long-slog parties, max-out-the-Oyster-card parties. It isn’t snobbery either. I make no distinction on the basis of house price, only distance. Happy to go to Mile End. Central Line all the way, baby. But not Richmond. Not if the District Line’s playing up. And the District Line is always playing up.

These are my conditions: W1, W2, SW1: yes. SW7, N1, NW3: at a push. Zones 2 and 3: if I really must. Zones 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9: God, no. More than two Tube changes: no. More than one bus change: no. Need to take the DLR: not a chance. I apply militant postcode discrimination to all invitations, especially at this time of year with its three holly-and-ivy parties a night.

Far from moping about missing out, I’m only too delighted to suffer FOFOPOCO. As I run the bath at home I think to myself: right now I’d be getting on the Central Line. Later, starting an episode of The Crown, I think: now I’d be changing at Oxford Circus. Now I’d be getting on the Overground at Highbury & Islington. Now getting out at Homerton. Now walking in the cold through Hackney. Now eating Heston From Waitrose mince pies and drinking M&S wine left on the boil too long. As I tuck myself into bed, I think: now I’d be forking out for a 2.9X surge-fare Uber journey because it’s raining and my feet hurt.

I’m not the only one. A girlfriend cried off a recent supper party at my flat with a text: ‘I know I’m awful, but I can’t face the Tube again today. Forgive me?’ I gave her my blessing and hoped she’d do the same for me the next time I had an attack of the FOFOPOCOs.

Party dresses - in pictures

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At least I’m in Zone 1. Living further out turns people into appalling invitation fibbers. We keep being told that this is the age of post-truth politics. I say it’s the age of post-truth party invitations. The US media organisation PolitiFact estimated that during the Presidential campaign more than 70 per cent of Donald Trump’s statements were ‘mostly false’, ‘false’ or ‘pants-on-fire false’. I apply the same criteria to ‘how-to-get-here’ instructions: ‘Frequent trains from Waterloo.’ Mostly false. ‘Short bus journey from station.’ False. ‘Five-minute walk from Wimbledon station.’ Pants-on-fire false. Your flat is to Wimbledon station as my tennis serve is to Andy Murray’s. It’s 20 minutes — and that’s if you jog.

I look back on university with nostalgia. Then, everyone had their 21st birthday parties at one of two venues: The Punter, a pub two-and-a-half minutes’ walk from my halls, or La Tasca, three minutes away, four if your heels got stuck in the cobbles. From time to time friends in other colleges would invite you to a party and you’d drag your boots about going ‘to the other side of town’. The other side of town was 18 minutes at most — four minutes on a bike.

Oh, halcyon days of everyone living in a single postcode. Then we all moved to London, or rather to Northolt, Kew, Holloway, Clacton, Denmark Hill and Croydon. My best friend and I lived together in Bayswater. When I wanted to see her I popped across the corridor in my pyjamas. Then she moved to Old Street (bearable), then De Beauvoir and thereafter to Brockley, which was in Kent (KENT!) before London gobbled it up.

For her and her alone I will brave two Tube changes, a train and an uphill walk. Otherwise, terribly sorry. I’d have liked to join you for fireworks, I can’t think of anything nicer than your home-made vodka eggnog, I do love Ottolenghi turkey burgers. It’s just that… the trouble is… you’re a bit TBFA for me.

That is: Too Bloody Far Away.

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