【Germany】

If you're reading this,Germany you're probably not at Glastonbury. And, dear reader, neither am I.

Marking the start of the UK summer for hundreds of thousands of carefree festival attendees, Glastonbury Festival takes over Michael Eavis's dairy farm and your Instagram feed from June 26-30. But while my friends are drinking beers in hammocks, dancing to Janelle Monáe, and frolicking in the sun, I'm watching it all unfold on my phone.

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I almost got there. Long story short, an ID photo, cautioned as 'too dark' in a ticketing confirmation email that ended up in my junk folder, made me miss my debut at "Glasto." It hurts even more because it was on my laptop that we managed to buy everyone's tickets.

Everyone, that is, except me. Oh, and my girlfriend, too, who decided to skip the festival in solidarity. She instantly regretted it.

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I'm not one to write first-person stories, wear colour-coded outfits that only come out during festival season, or shame my friends for having fun without me. But as the gradual realisation set in that I was the only one to miss out amongst a group of friends easily more populous than a small Bulgarian town, an unusual sense of ennui took over.

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The part where the group chat gets competitive

While valiantly trying to avoid early festival FOMO, it didn't help that friends kept bombarding me with snaps of the glorious time they were having soaking up the sun and drinking wine before noon together while I was sitting at my computer at work. Just look at this — the audacity.

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In the words of the great Bob Dylan, with whom I share never having stepped onto those green Glastonbury fields, I'm not there, I'm gone.Picture tumbleweeds and faint wind whistling over an abandoned town — we're getting dramatic here. Even Mashable's office is quieter and emptier than usual — Glasto, surely, is to blame.

Friends I was trying to meet up with, maybe play some tennis in the sun with, couldn't make it — Glasto. I even got a seat on the tube, which has been unusually accommodating, every single morning. Glasto?

To make matters worse, while writing this very piece my editor kindly suggested I at least get into the summer festival mood by listening to Spotify's graciously concocted Glasto playlist. The link, naturally, didn't work for me. (Editor's note: Sorry the link didn't work, Nikolay. Byeeee off to Glasto!)

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The part where you tell yourself you never wanted to go anyway

To be honest, before this year, I hadn't really want to go to the festival at all. Don't look at me like that. What makes this year different is that my annual pros/cons list started to finally tip in favour of going. All the usual reasons I'd used to avoid going in the past suddenly lacked conviction.

"The mud though..." Well, this year's weather at Worth Farm has been the best in recent history. One of my friends defiantly warned he wouldn't attend the festival if it rained again. This same friend is currently messaging in a group chat, imploring my friends to join him by the festival swings.

I hope they're full.

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"The food's gonna be shit," I'd tell myself. Now, I can almost smell the delicious food truck barbeque scents that must be luring festivalgoers by the dozens from their front row positions at Tame Impala as I eat my solitary salad in an east London 'park'.

I hope they run out of napkins.

And what of the ultimate festival feature: the bathrooms? This year's Glastonbury features humorously stenciled loos that just seem the perfect respite for a few idyllic minutes of alone time. They're probably not, but our office equivalent feels like what Suicide Squad is to The Dark Knight. Clean, accessible, but nowhere near the action.

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"Sleeping in a tent, though..." was surely my strongest case. That was always the main deterrent from joining many semi-adventurous trips in the past. This, especially in the long run, is a point I'll gladly claim when the festivalgoers all return with aching backs and mosquito bites.

Alas, I found out... there are hammocks at Glastonbury. I hope they struggle to get in one.

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The part when your friends' messages suddenly stop...

As quittin' time finally approached on Thursday, it was time to reclaim my freedom of movement and suckerpunch my friends with snaps of cocktails in glasswareand full of ice, sipped in pubs with abundant, comfortable, somewhat clean seating areas. And make no mistake, if you walk around Camden long enough, you're bound to meet a rockstar or two. It was my time to shine.

Take that! Well, no one in my group chat answered.

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And now it's Friday and the messages have entirely dissipated. I'm hoping it's because my friends have all run out of battery, are suffering without signal in radio silence, and/or are way too hungover to participate in my loathsome games.

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But that's probably not the case. I imagine they're having heaps of fun and there's just no time for updates for their non-present friends. They're probably meeting up by the swings again. That's cool.

Let's be real, Glasto isn't what it used to be, when Keanu Reeves played in 1998. That's real FOMO.

It happened. Credit: PA Images via Getty Images

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