Engagement parties, weddings, baby showers: If these words sound like a page from your social calendar, read on.

Congratulations! You have reached the grand old age of being invited to Celebrate Other People’s Life Events.

Once reserved for people who have survived death for another year, now gifts, cards and parties are given to people who aren’t just living life, but, as far as society and Clinton’s Cards are concerned, living it well.

First it’s

• Congratulations on finding a lovely bloke / lady to settle down with,

then

• Well done for working overtime to save for a house, buying said house, and moving into said house,

and finally

• Hurrah for doing all this, overcoming the need to fall asleep the minute you get into bed, and creating a baby instead.

And as long as people want to share that stuff with others, then I will happily grin, use it as excuse to buy a new outfit, and attend.

However, in a week where my housemates put in place their plans for a three course dinner and club night to celebrate their engagement (tickets: £27), and next year’s bridesmaid commitments tried to demand a hefty advance payment (flights to proposed hen do: £100), another friend attended a baby shower.

Now, as far as I can tell, the idea of a baby shower is something along the lines of

Dear Friends,


We are having a child and want to show you blurry scans and stuff. Please come round and celebrate with us. 

We will provide wine and cupcakes, you will provide cots, toys, clothing and equipment (list attached). See you Saturday.


Love, Parents-to-be xx

Having encountered all this in one week and pressed “send” on an email to my fellow bridesmaids which will almost certainly earn me the title of The Cheapo Friend, suggesting that a hen-do for 14 people in Eastern Europe may be – how you say - pricing people out a bit, it struck me:

Other People’s Life Events are bloody expensive, aren’t they?

It’s all well and good sharing your coupled glee with the world, but when that requires others to dig deep, buy pre-selected gifts and even face denting a friendship if their bank accounts don't step up to the mark, something begins to grate.

And aside from anything else, it seems to me that there’s an awfully large gap in the market.

It was Sunday morning when I sat on the phone to my good friend PIB. Her: newly single, lounging in the garden with papers, bemoaning the six hour small-talk session that had been yesterday’s baby shower. Me, still in bed at 11am, on the cusp of a ground-breaking plan.

“Look. We’re doing well. We’ve got good jobs, busy social lives, the world at our feet, we’re happy. So where are our bloody presents? Let’s have a night where all our coupled, married and babied friends have to come to a pub, buy us shit loads of drinks, bring us Kurt Geiger vouchers, and celebrate the fact that we’re single and doing it well. Then when they all bow out early to feed the husbands, wives and kids, we’ll stay out and get smashed on their gifts of champagne.”

That’s right ladies and gents, all hail my new invention: the Single Shower.

Because if everyone else is getting congratulated on being happy with someone else, then I want a pat on the back and some free stuff for achieving the same on my own.

So, who's up for it? Let's get this craze sweeping the nation.

RSVP below.

Oh, and if you're asking - mine's a Bollinger.