The Dad Bod Diaries — Week 3: Life is what happens after a rake of pints

There’s a specific lie we tell ourselves in middle age... and it usually arrives disguised as optimism

Bernard O'Shea: 'Every social catch-up now comes with collateral damage. You pay for it physically. You pay for it in sleep. You pay for it the next day when you’re standing in the kitchen at 11am, wondering how a man who ate 'sensibly' last night can feel this fragile.'

IN YOUR 20s, one night was a blip. In your 40s, one night is a domino. It tips into the next day, the day after that, your sleep, your appetite, your mood, your knees and bizarrely your left eyebrow.

This realisation landed on me recently on the night our old friend group finally managed to meet up at Christmas — a logistical miracle on par with the moon landing. One lad is home from Canada, briefly, like a migrating bird. Another has to work early the next morning. Two of us trying to organise childcare, mental energy, and a vague sense of who we used to be when going out didn’t require planning permission.