I recently read this article:-

Surviving Christmas Depression and Holiday Blues

It started me thinking about the excesses and paradoxes of this time of year. People who are normally rational get caught up in the hoopla and end up doing things that at any other time of the year would seem ridiculous and unnecessary.

Decorating one’s house, for example, with tacky shiny things and even more tacky fairy lights. Buying enough food to last a small African nation several weeks and eating it in a 1 or 2 day orgy of excess. Attending a church service when one has absolutely no interest in organised religion. And that at midnight, for chrissakes. Sending hundreds of pieces of glitter-covered cardboard through the post to people we normally only see at funerals, and then only when we cannot avoid attending. Placing a huge felled tree in one’s living room. Enduring bitter arguments with family members normally best kept at a distance. It goes on…

It’s all pretty stupid, and yet at christmas millions of people do it purely because others are doing it, these sheep-like instincts being wrapped up in vague justifications with phrases like “christmas spirit” and “the season of goodwill”.

Last Year

I speak as someone with no religious beliefs, who would like nothing better than for the whole tradition to die out, like cock-fighting or slavery. And yet it’s impossible to put such a cocoon around myself that what’s going on doesn’t affect me at all. A little history…

I am one of those people who went straight from living in a family who liked to celebrate christmas, to living with a girlfriend who liked to celebrate christmas. When my partner and I separated in 2010, that year was the first year when I could do precisely what I wanted during the christmas season. What I wanted, of course, was to ignore it, so ignore it I did.

But it’s not always easy going against the herd, particularly when the herd is so caught up in social excess that solitary people with different priorities get lost in the crowd. I found that I felt lonely, in spite of not having any interest in joining others’ festivities. The people I would normally turn to for company were not available, precisely because they were caught up in the whole “eat, drink and be merry” vibe, and the feeling of solitude (which normally I am quite comfortable with) was heightened by the contrast between my choice and the choices of others.

Although I managed to avoid becoming depressed, I found my thinking becoming quite negative. It may be a season of goodwill, but goodwill did not appear to involve sensitivity. I decided that Christmas was actually the season when more people are oblivious to the situations of others than any other time of the year.

I didn’t regret my choice not to get dragged in to the festivities – but I knew I needed a better way to handle it.

This Year

This year, I spent some serious time thinking about how to deal with this annual challenge. Once again I have friends who I normally see regularly, but who will be unavailable to me due to their seasonal obligations – in some cases travelling abroad for up to three weeks.

I realised that the times last christmas when I felt best was when I was busy, distracted from what was going on around me. I remember going for a short hike on christmas day and how it made me feel much better.

For me, travel is the supreme distraction – seeing different places, doing different things, simply feeling different than one would at home. So it seemed to me that leaving Malta for a few days would be the best protection against seasonal loneliness and risk of depression.

I was ready to travel alone, but in the end, I have found one friend who used to be keen on christmas but who has become more cynical about the dubious benefits of following the crowd and enduring time with their family, with all the pressures that go with it.

We decided that the most logical thing would be to travel together, thereby avoiding all other commitments and hopefully being distracted by the simple delight in being somewhere else.

So, next week will see me travelling to Italy with my friend, for some city strolling, country walking, good food and good conversation.

There will be no christmas trees in our hotel rooms, no cards cluttering up shelves, no nightmare family dinners, no repeats on the TV – but hopefully no loneliness either.

I think I may have cracked the problem. I’ll let you know in January.

No, not the things on the end of your thumb, but the little pictures of people’s faces that we see on their Facebook profiles, LinkedIn profiles, online dating profiles, and probably every other social network in existence.

Take online dating for instance. I know that someone’s appearance shouldn’t matter as much as their character, sense of humour, and all that good stuff, but if you’re a member of an online dating site, can you put hand on heart and say that you initiated contact with another member who didn’t have a photo of themselves on their profile?

Because in most cases people are happy to post a photo of themselves, we come to expect it, and even rely on it in the judgements we make about people.

Facebook is another case in point – in fact with Facebook the whole issue gets subverted by our wish to feel good about ourselves. When we connect with an old friend on Facebook, someone we haven’t seen for years or even since schooldays, our first move is to their profile pictures. Have they aged badly? Have I aged better? Did they lose their looks? Am I still attracted to them? Should I feel sorry for them? They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I think it depends on what those words would be.

Even a business network like LinkedIn can be tainted by association in our minds. When I answer questions on LinkedIn groups, I find myself tending to pay less attention to the ones posted by members without profile pics, even though it has absolutely no relevance whatsoever. My brain has become programmed to want to know what someone looks like before I decide whether to interact with them in any way.

I wonder what would happen if all the major social networks hid everyone’s profile pictures for a month. Obviously we would all notice, but would it affect our interactions in any way? Would we interact with the same people, or would we start looking for other ways to form a judgement about someone? What they wrote, for example?

I know that western society is often lambasted for being shallow and concerned more with appearance – just look at fragrance advertising for an example.

But are we like that with our friends and colleagues as well? Are we in denial about it? And does it even matter?

I’ve done my part and my form is completed – except that I didn’t have to lift a finger.

Believe it or not, last Friday night there was a knock at my door (which in itself is unusual since I live in an apartment block with a video link to the communal front door), and when I opened it, a girl who couldn’t have been more than 16 breezed in past me with a beaming smile, a bag full of papers and a comment about being here to do the census.

I was in the middle of eating a meal, but it didn’t seem likely that she would be easily put off, so I sighed and focussed my attention on the census form. This was in Maltese (the girl said she didn’t have any English ones left), and she proceeded to translate each question out loud for me and then fill in my answer herself.

I noticed that she ticked the wrong box on at least three occasions (thus proving that I can read basic Maltese upside-down even when hungry and irritated) but I couldn’t care less how accurate the census is so I didn’t bother to correct her.

And so about 20 minutes later (just long enough for my dinner to cool to room temperature) we were done, and she breezed out and across the landing to the next apartment.

A couple of things stuck out in my mind from this somewhat unusual experience; firstly, I hadn’t realised that the Maltese government employs children; and secondly, how much must this whole process be costing, if every form is delivered by hand, and a significant number of non-Maltese speakers benefit from the level of assistance that I got? Can Malta afford it?

Malta politicians - a handy spotting guide

Let’s put it this way…

A politician is supposed to represent the views of the voters his or her district, right? And a referendum directly takes the views of voters, right?

Right.

So why is there now going to be a vote in parliament about the outcome of the referendum?

All the politicians will naturally vote exactly the same way the voters in their district voted, because their job is to represent those voters, so there should be no need to have a further vote.

Wait – what’s that you say? Some Maltese politicians vote for their own agenda, going against the wishes of the people they represent?

Well bugger me sideways with a pitchfork. You can’t trust anyone these days.

So what do you do if your best friend starts a relationship with someone you really don’t like?

For me this is a really tough one. My best friend is female (I’m male), and we discuss every aspect of our lives with each other. We spend a lot of time together, and she’s about the only person in my life that I can spend more than an hour with, without wanting to escape. I often think that this is what having a soul mate must feel like, apart from the fact that we don’t sleep together. But then maybe that’s not an essential part of being a soul mate – who knows? I digress…

Recently she’s kind of fallen into a relationship with a guy. I say “fallen into” deliberately – they got to know each other, became friends, then he started working at her place instead of at his own home, then he started staying over, then I guess the couch got uncomfortable, and the rest is bedroom talk.

And through all this, she and I continued to meet & talk as usual, although the conversation often turned to this new relationship as you might expect. The guy seems to have a history of being a bit secretive and treating women quite shabbily, and she still doesn’t entirely trust him. But for some reason she’s sticking with it, and I respect her too much to try and change her mind.

And now we come to the crunch. My friend’s new guy professes to like me and wants to be able to count me as a friend, and obviously this would make her happy as well. On paper it should work – he’s in a similar line of work, he’s intelligent, he’s well-read, yada yada.

But I just don’t like him! Where she sees bluffing to mask lack of confidence, I see arrogance. Where she sees tenderness, I see scheming. Where she sees friendly, I see smarmy. Where she sees funny eccentricities, I see creepy. When he shakes my hand (which he seems to want to do every time we meet – how fucked up is that?), I want to retch. And I feel convinced that at some point he’s going to abuse her trust and I’m going to have to pick up the pieces.

Is it because I feel displaced? I honestly don’t know. She and I still meet, just the two of us, at least twice a week, so it’s not like I’m losing out in terms of time. And she is adamant that she and I still share our thoughts far more honestly than she and he do.

Is it because I’m actually in love with her? Well, if I’m honest, sometimes I think that we would be so perfect for each other, we should just stop wasting time messing around with other people. But after many years of feeling trapped and stifled in a toxic relationship, the last thing I want right now is a full-blown commitment, with her or anyone else, so I don’t think that’s it.

What definitely feels uncomfortable, though, is the fact that every time I pick her up, he invites me for dinner, or asks if I’ll stay and hang with them, or whatever, and I’m running out of ways to say no without hurting my friend’s feelings.

I have tried, I really have – I’ve let myself be invited out for coffee with both of them a few times, but each time I come away thinking “shit that was awkward, I hope I never meet him again”, or “fuck, where does he get off? Arrogant little shit”, and I now have to say enough is enough. I can’t force myself to like someone, just because social programming says that I should.

I spent most of my adult life pleasing other people, while suffering quietly myself, and last year when I left my partner of 20 years, I swore to myself that this would change. So I’m not going to put myself through hell socialising with this asshole just to please my best friend.

I just hope I can explain all this to her without really hurting her feelings. It won’t be easy.