Summer’s wedding season is now approaching, which means two-thirds of your weekends between now and June are going to be obliterated by stag trips. This ritual of male bonding was in the news this week when a Ryanair flight to Bratislava was forced to make an unscheduled landing, after several members of a stag group from Southampton had a drunken row – which included one attendee stripping off, others trading punches and one threatening to stab another with a fork. The BBC’s new comedy drama Stag also explores the dark depths of a groom-to-be’s final send-off. With this in mind, it’s time to face the grim reality of the stag night – and the worst things about it.

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Pre-drinking pre-lunch If one member of the group could pipe up and say "Don’t actually fancy a pint of cooking lager, what with it being the time of day when I’d normally be having a cup of tea, thanks’" the whole boozy edifice would collapse. Instead, a grim pantomime ensues where a load of men adopt the drinking habits of an alcoholic ex-footballer because it’s the done thing. The fact that you’re in a pub in an airline terminal that smells of cleaning fluid and defrosting meat makes it even less appetising. Still, who doesn’t enjoy a hangover that starts kicking in at 11.15am?

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The Dad on the Loose The solitary member of your group who recently became a dad and sees his brief respite from night time feeds, NCT classes and nappy-changing as a 36 hour window in which he’s compelled to get absolutely destroyed on booze, go clubbing (anywhere), stay awake for the entire night and have a cocaine-induced panic attack after doing half a line. He’ll also bore you rigid by spending the entire trip showing you phone videos of his child doing something incomprehensible, then stand much too close to you while saying stuff like "Don’t do it mate… just don’t…", give you far more detail than you want about his post-natal sex life, and then be asleep by 7pm.

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The itinerary The rigid schedule that the best man has come up with, which instantly makes you feel like you’re on a school trip and sucks the fun out of everything. However, the worst part is the bit where he’s put "everyone just hang out for a few hours" on the Saturday afternoon – this is where boredom and completely exhausted conversation will see everyone drinking so much that the rest of the itinerary goes out of the window.

Show Page 5 The trip to the microbrewery Nobody enjoys these. You love beer? Great. Why do you need to see where it’s made? You don’t feel the need to go for a guided walk round the abattoir just because you enjoy a bacon sandwich.

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The nightclub lottery The likelihood that your internet research has led you to find the equivalent of Studio 54 in an east European town with no vowels in its name is slim. And this, of course, is assuming that any club actually wants to let you in – most venues’ dream punters don’t include a group of 20 blokes in matching t-shirts, one of whom is dressed in a morph suit with a pair of plastic breasts glued to the front, and who are collectively emitting so much testosterone that any woman walking within 10 metres is likely to spontaneously hit the menopause.

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The cost When your dad got married, he probably nipped out the night before his wedding with his brother, his best mate and his future father in law, had two pints of Skol and was home in time for Match of The Day with change from a tenner. Somehow this mutated into time off work, four days in Europe, flights, hotels, multiple restaurants, car hire, bribery paid to border officials, damages to the hotel and the cost of repatriating a body, to the point where you return to London having somehow dropped £2000 to spend a weekend doing something that nobody was really that into.

Show Page 8 The Sex Pest The member of the group who was remarkably insistent that you should go to a city with a bit of a reputation for ‘naughtiness’, who managed to ‘accidentally’ book you into a hotel right in the middle of the red light district and who is repeatedly suggesting that you should go and look at some strippers. And who will disappear for two hours at some point, before returning in a slightly subdued mood.

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The Airbnb After spending weeks trawling the site trying to find accommodation that could sleep 13, you got lucky. Although the sleeping arrangements have turned out to involve four sets of bunk beds, two small sofas and a knackered camp bed, and a bathroom that is quickly reduced to a level that occupants of the Calais Jungle would deem "a bit grim".

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The hen night At the absolute lowest point of the weekend – when you’re sat in the Ukrainian equivalent of Little Chef looking out the window at a stray dog attacking a vagrant and praying for the groom’s younger brother to burst into flames – you’ll get a text from your girlfriend who is on the equivalent hen night. In the Cotswolds, at a luxury spa, sipping a bucks fizz and recovering from a joyful 24 hours of life-drawing, Michelin-starred food, award-winning cakes, limo service, VIP access to the best nightclub in town and the general glow that you get from being among friends for life. You will hate yourself, your friends and everything about the entire institution of marriage more than you ever thought possible.
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