Forget FOMO! I just want to put on my PJs and stay in bed

Do you suffer from FOMO – Fear of Missing Out? Well, I’m a staunch advocate of JOMO – the Joy of Missing Out.

We’ve all experienced it; that secret relief when an event is cancelled at the last minute. Or a train strike means you can’t make that party, meaning you don’t have to paint your nails or blow dry your hair. Ah, the secret delight of kicking off your high heels, putting on your PJs and curling up in bed with a good book or a box set while the rain pitter-patters on the pane.

“Staying in” has become the new “going out”.Credit: ISTOCK

Well, for me, winter is one long, joyous JOMO. There’s a lot of whining going on right now about how wet, windy and bum-numbingly freezing it is this year. But as soon as the nights started drawing in, all I felt was a sense of cardiganed cosiness. For me, “staying in” has become the new “going out”. Opening my diary these days, I get snow blindness from the empty white pages. But please don’t picture me shuffling aimlessly about like Marlene Dietrich in the Vegas years. I’ve never felt so contented. Snuggled up under a blanket on the sofa, sipping hot chocolate, I feel cocooned by life’s small comforts.

The reason I’m so ready to hibernate is that I find the summer months incredibly stressful. While all my friends head off on their sensationally exciting summer breaks, I invariably book a one-way ticket on a guilt trip. Why? Well, because every time I check social media, these same pals are busy flaunting their “Living My Best Life” hashtags. I feel assaulted by a never-ending stream of Instagram posts featuring friends surfing in Bali, sailing the Whitsundays, whooping it up at music festivals or on a scuba dive in Cuba. They beam back at me, smile wattage on “stun”, flexing carb-starved, protein-shake-fuelled bodies as if poised to run a marathon up Mount Kosciuszko at a moment’s notice.

Unless I’m noshing on raw yak meat with tribeswomen on the tundra or rafting with rebels on the crocodile-infested Zambezi, eating things that blink back at me, well, apparently, I’m just not living!

The most dangerous thing I did last summer was to swim outside the flags at Bondi Beach for a full five minutes. But the pressure to join in this action-packed Fun Fest is relentless. Neither will adventurous pals accept any excuse for opting out; well, not unless I’m in an iron lung, have a leg in traction, contracted the bubonic plague or abducted by aliens.

Oh, the joy of exchanging those strappy summer sandals and strapless frocks for fluffy slippers and trackie daks – or “the pants of doom”.

KATHY LETTE

My less-adventurous chums are annoyingly industrious. When my girlfriends aren’t learning salsa, tango or ballroom dancing, they’re baking their own bread in home-made kilns, expertly wielding avocado multitools to make decorative super salads or tending the fresh herbs in their organic gardens, before Instagramming their basil, kale and quinoa creations. Trying to compete or even just vaguely keep up, is exhausting.

But in the winter, life calms down and a lovely wave of laziness washes over me. Last Sunday I didn’t leave my bed all day because then I’d have had to brush my teeth, followed by a series of actions that would amount to living life as an active person. Not only was I unable to drum up any enthusiasm about dental hygiene but when I did finally manage to get dressed oh, around dusk, it was into a baggy onesie best described as an adult babygro.

Oh, the joy of exchanging those strappy summer sandals and strapless frocks for fluffy slippers and trackie daks – or “the pants of doom” as my partner calls them. As for hobbies? My plan is to just give into the menopause and grow a moustache ... an immense soup-strainer moustache, like Stalin.

When friends suggest outings, I reply, “Sorry, but I think I’ve got some kind of lurgy.”

“Ah, yes, the old lolling-on-a-sofa-watching-Bridgerton-flu. Poor you,” they chuckle, proving that this hibernation bug is contagious. It’s tempting to just cover myself in leaves, close my eyes and only breathe twice a minute until next summer.

With no visitors, the microwave has become my sous chef. A flotsam of half-eaten snacks and cold coffee cups drifts out from a sofa bearing an indentation of a body that has spent quite a few happy hours reclining here. Other indolent guests are welcome to join me, however. My neighbour just popped over with a bottle of wine and we’re now blissfully watching animals mate on an old David Attenborough doco.

“Another glass?” she’s just asked, waving a corkscrew.

“Why not? Since when has guzzling too much plonk and eating a plantation of crisps ever been the wrong choice?” Hibernation has taught me that the best reason to say no to drugs … is that it gives you more time to quaff cab sav.

But whether it’s wine-o’clock or not, I’ve never felt more fulfilled. So, why not pack away your running shoes, gardening shears, yoga mats, pottery wheels and home-made bread baking kilns and join me in my slothful, wintery, hibernation state? My new motto? Just don’t do something – stand there.

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