I will stop pretending I can hear what people are saying. Replying "how lovely – that's great" after my neighbour disclosed the death of her mother was, last year, a definite mistake. It can be avoided this year. If I don't hear, I must say "I'm sorry" and ask them to repeat themselves, and then ask them repeat themselves a second time and, as I still can't hear, then proffer a piece of paper and a pen so the news might be written down.

I will resist the urge to say "Ah, hello, so wonderful to see you", when I don't have the foggiest who they are. The conversation is so lovely. You ask about them! They ask about you! You both remark how lovely it is to see the other. Then, inevitably – no really, inevitably –a third person will join your conversation and their first words will be: "Ah, so please introduce me to your friend."

I will not hog the dips. I can afford hummus. I can afford guacamole. I have sufficient funds that I could bathe in the stuff. So how come I'm here, at 10.25, trying to hoover up whatever sources of nutrition have been provided by the couple who provided the invitation? It does not look good now. I will look even worse on Facebook tomorrow.

I will not pretend, on meeting someone new, to "be very aware of what you do". I understand, in the aftermath of last year's NYE party, that I should never say "I love your butcher shop", or "We've heard about your pet minding service", or "I just finished your superb new novel" – this due to the high chance I've confused this person with another butcher/pet-minder/novelist, often their arch rival, someone they actively dislike, and I'd have been better off saying: "My, isn't that guacamole good?"

I will not dance. Yes, I know all that Californian stuff about "dance like nobody is watching", but those people haven't seen me. Or, maybe, you. Randy Labrador is not yet a registered dance move. Better, now it's 11.25, to keep with my new policy: "Dance like your orthopaedic surgeon is watching".