2010 Resolution No 1: not to mix friends

I hate being forced to buy presents for people when I would rather do so spontaneously during the year. I hate delayed flights due to paralysed international airports due to inclement weather. I hate Christmas songs about some fat chap on a sleigh. Bob Geldof’s and Midge Ure’s Band Aid hit “Do they know it’s Christmas time?”, however, hits the nail right on the festive head: it’s about how we should feel towards others over the Christmas and New Year period which, at least for me, is entirely more important. I tell you this not simply because it is that holiday season but more so that you don’t believe when you read what follows that I am psychologically and socially crippled: mixing friends is under no circumstances, I repeat with capitals, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, a good idea.

Last week while on the phone with a University friend of mine whom I have known for over 10 years she mentioned that she was having dinner with a Maastricht based new friend of mine. They have met only once and that occasion lasted barely an hour; I know this because I was there. “You don’t mind, do you?” she asked. Yes, I did mind, but of course I couldn’t say for fear of being depicted as the rude, churlish one. I responded casually with a “Brilliant. Be sure to take him to the restaurant at the National Portrait Gallery. He will love that, really.” Not only were they meeting for supper but I took it upon myself to suggest one of my favourite London haunts for their amusement. It’s not that I felt left out but more that I feared I knew where this meeting would lead to.

Leaving Maastricht for Christmas I switched on my UK mobile to read an sms from a very close friend. “Why don’t you join [my new girlfriend] and me for brunch tomorrow?”, he wrote. Without a moment of hesitation, I declined and rescheduled for a time when said new girlfriend would be occupied at work. Fact number 1: I would have been imposing. Fact number 2: Having to explain inside jokes and stories would actually be hard work and I’m on holiday.

I am also terrorised when a friend asks if someone else can join us for dinner – no one would ever ask if it’s okay to bring someone along to a funeral or a job interview. Why aren’t they okay on their own for an hour or two while we grab a bite to eat? Unplanned presences are, in my pocket sized festive book, as un-welcome as another season of Big Brother or bum bags or emoticons added to emails from anyone other than a child….

If we get along with the people we are introduced to or the people you introduce become chummy, that opens Pandora’s box: What if the person you’re introduced to is, let’s face it, a lot more fun than your friend? What if the people you introduce embrace under some mistletoe or, worse still, embark on a relationship? Other than the extreme positions of emigrating or ditching both friends, my advice is that you insist that they sign notarised deeds of acknowledgment confirming that in the event that the love dies between them, you will be as neutral as Switzerland in the post-break up mess thus spared from all repercussions (an ex of mine once issued a fatwa against me and emailed friends with a character assassination. Ouch).

Having lived out of my birth city for almost a decade now, if I make plans to meet an old friend it’s often because we haven’t seen each other for quite a while. I love my friends and I am acute to the realities of the toll living outside the same country dial code can have on friendships and family relationships. Even with the technological advances of this century, nothing can replace seeing people in the flesh in real time. Getting together with anyone these days in person takes planning of epic magnitude so when the agenda is set chances are we really do have a lot to catch up on and I would like to keep it that way in 2010.

So as this new decade unfolds, and with the hope of keeping my friends exactly that, selfishly mine and unmixed, I wish you a “Vrolijk Kerstfeest” en een “Gelukkig Nieuwjaar”.

By Michael Wells-Greco

Michael Wells-Greco, a solicitor in his former life, now undertaking post-grad studies at the University of Maastricht.