Help! I'm almost 30 and my friends are procreating like humanity depends on it

If you’ve had a baby in the last year, chances are you’ve named it Oliver or Olivia. We know this because those were announced this week as the most popular baby names of 2016, beating the likes of Teddy, Luna and Arabella. I can’t ever imagine saying “little baby Arabella”, but each to their own.

Matilda is as popular as ever, which actually makes me want to vomit. Earlier this summer I sat opposite one on a cramped train, a toddler, squeezed between her mother and her father. She was eating a Fab ice lolly, 95% of which was missing her mouth and caking itself to her cheeks and neck. I was hungover and the child was causing me distress. Her parents did nothing, except for her mother who chuckled and said: “Oh Tilly, you are adorable.” No. “Tilly” is not adorable; your daughter is a rotten pig.

Next year I turn 30, as do most of my friends, so it’s all aboard the baby train for ol’ Lycett and pals. I’m obviously not having any – I’m partnerless, rudderless and largely self-absorbed. I don’t want a little Oliver/Olivia parasite running about eating my biscuits. My friends, on the other hand, are procreating like humanity depends on it, and it doesn’t. Even those who don’t have children no longer make a face of disgust when the prospect of one is suggested. Now it’s all, “We’re getting married first,” or “Once the kitchen has been fitted,” and “I’m not doing a tequila shot with you Joe, it’s 11am.” What happened to these people? When did they get so basic?

My first experience of all this was a few years back when I received a mysterious invite from a couple asking me to come to theirs for dinner as they had “some news”. I love both of them, but the idea of a home-cooked dinner terrified me. Last time they followed a recipe for a Jamie Oliver lasagne, and I can only presume the recipe included the instruction “Take the lasagne out of the oven before it is properly cooked and aggressively punch it into the ground.”

I sat in the kitchen drinking a glass of their finest Echo Falls as they announced excitedly: “We’re going to try for a baby!” I attempted to celebrate by sort of applauding and making a congratulatory noise, but a sound somewhere between a shriek and a sigh came out instead and I managed to smash my glass on the kitchen tiles out of shock.

“Sorry! Not about the baby! About the glass! That’s fantastic about the baby!” All of this was lies. They needed to get used to cleaning up other people’s mess now, and may as well have started with my debris. Minutes later, I got on my high horse: “Don’t you worry that you’re bringing a person into a bad world? There are so many bad people at the moment.” No one asks people why they want a baby, and so suddenly I felt like Jeremy Paxman. Their reply was surprisingly impressive. “Precisely. There are a lot of bad people in the world so it’s important we make good people.” I couldn’t argue with that logic, to be fair, but did I trust them to make a good person? They couldn’t make a decent quiche.

I can see why people do it – some kids can be adorable. My friend’s nine-month-old daughter, Etta, is one of my favourite people. She loves a snap decision, regrets nothing, feels no guilt. There’s no angst, no pondering over whether she’ll be judged for any of her actions; she just grabs a spoon, studies it briefly and then tosses it away in search of a new experience. I long for the simplicity of it all. I can’t have a KitKat without panicking.

Some friends are like me: they aren’t that bothered right now, but suffer quiet pressure from parents. Mine don’t make a fuss, apart from the occasional solemn acknowledgment that some of their friends are now grandparents, and how nice that must be. “You couldn’t have your career if you had children,” they say, as they come round to put copies of my live DVD to bed as I go out for the night.

Ultimately, it all makes me a bit sad because deep down I’d love to have kids. I think I’d make a great dad, but just not yet, and I can’t see myself being ready in the next 3-400 years. It’s just that I’ve got so much other stuff I want to do first, like take a three-hour bath every day and write totally idiotic jokes the whole time. I nearly got hit by a car while I was trying to write a stupid joke but a female sheep stood in the way. I can’t thank ewe enough.

So for now, I’ll just enjoy spoiling it for the new parents. I’ve developed a fun text when a friend has just had a baby. I ask a classic question: “Are you sleeping?” The reply is inevitably that they aren’t, they’re getting a few hours here and there, they’re exhausted. It’s then when I swoop in: “It’ll all be worth it when they’re softly stroking your hair as you slip into oblivion.”

Joe Lycett’s Parsnips, Buttered is out now in paperback (£8.99). Buy a copy for £7.64 at guardianbookshop.com. Tickets for Joe’s new tour are on sale at joelycettcomedy.co.uk