The infinite bliss of staying in for the evening - Emma Newlands comment

While I can’t say I don’t like going out for a quiet dinner now and then, my nights of hitting the town far behind me in the rear view mirror, I have well and truly realised that my favourite way of spending an evening is, and has always been, staying in.

'The thing I love about staying “in in” is that it eliminates so many of the pitfalls of a night out that should be avoidable' (file image). Picture: Ryan McVay/Getty Images

And when I say staying in, I mean REALLY staying in – “IN in” – the opposite of “going OUT out”, the latter a concept comedian Micky Flanagan has covered and popularised so well.

You pop out to the shop, bump into a friend and agree to go for a quick drink, he says, but several hours later “you’re in some horrendous nightclub, Sinatra’s or Cinderella’s, some hellhole… [telling people] ‘I only popped out, now look at me – I’m “out out”!

Instead, I mean pyjamas on, high-end ready meal locked and loaded, and watching some kind of guilty pleasure on TV – maybe some ‘80s classic I’ve seen countless times.

The thing I love about staying “in in” is that it eliminates so many of the pitfalls of a night out that should be avoidable, but if anything have got worse (that main course is HOW much?), accelerating the speed at which my tolerance for things I didn’t mind so much when I was younger has plummeted.

Waiting ages for a table at a restaurant that doesn’t take bookings (a policy I understand but in some cases think needs fine-tuning), navigating streets filled with “merry” revellers wearing next to nothing, then ending the night trying flag down a taxi or, shudder, navigating the last bus or train home? No thanks.

Also, while Edinburgh recently ranked fifth among the best UK cities for an evening out, according to Get Licensed, I’m not in the 61 per cent that said they felt safe walking alone in the city at night.

But while staying “in in” in some ways takes less effort than going out, hunkering down does involve some planning. My strategy is to do a small food shop at a top-dollar store, a cheaper option as well as swerving “sight unseen” and potential delay risks involved in getting a takeaway.

The concept underpinning this meal (eat your heart out, Heston) is that it should involve no real cooking – sticking a tray of something in the oven is as strenuous as it should get.

Another key aspect of staying “in in” is that I aim to be barricaded indoors for the evening by 6pm at the latest, in my pyjamas (nothing as respectable/socially acceptable as loungewear) by 7pm – perhaps a bath between these two key times.

And I feel safe in the knowledge that in five hours I won’t be telling people I’ve inadvertently ended up “out out”, but rather I will be tucked up in bed, hot water bottles superior to hedonism.