Not Lonesome This Christmas

Jesus fuck!  They've started early with trying to cast those of us who like to spend Christmas on our own as sad, lonely bastards.  It's all over the front page of tomorrow's Daily Mirror: a government initiative to get local busy bodies to look in on their 'friends' who might be alone this Christmas.  Well, i'll warn you in advance - come knocking on my door trying to patronise me for being 'lonely' and you'll be met with a hearty "Fuck off!" and the door slammed in your face.  Bloody do-gooders - all they are interested in is salving their own consciences and establishing their moral superiority.  I really don't understand why so  many people seem to have difficulty in grasping the fact that a not insignificant number of us actually like being on our own.  We're sufficiently at ease with ourselves that we can enjoy our own company.  In the John Wayne movie Rooster Cogburn (1975), the titular character encounters an old coot who runs a river ferry in the middle of nowhere, who informs the Duke that he's never met anyone he likes better than himself, so he likes to spend as much time with himself as he can.  Which is pretty much how I feel.  I'm a pretty typical loner, I'd say.  We tend not to fit the stereotype of being some kind of weirdos who grew up without friends and family, so have had to be self-sufficient.  Nope, I come from a large family, with a lot of siblings and a plethora of Aunts, Uncles, cousins and the like, who all figured prominently in my childhood.  Which left me, even then, craving for some privacy, some bloody personal space of my own.  As I grew up, I wasn't short of friends, but I quickly realised that most so-called friendships are facile and shallow, with too many people seeing the relationship as primarily a transactional one.  Personally, I've always believed that friendship should be based on more than that, which is why, these days, I have a small, select group of people I consider friends, rather than acquaintances.

But, according  to the Mirror, ministers are shocked by 'the astonishing scale of isolation' with '1.8 million alone at Christmas', which has prompted them to 'call for action'.  Really, it is just so sodding patronising to assume that because someone is on their own, they must be 'isolated' or 'lonely'.  Sure, I know that they are probably thinking of all those pensioners out there, spending Christmas alone, but unfortunately, they make no distinction between those who are truly isolated, because they no longer have close family, or have lost touch with them, and those of us who are on our own through choice.  I chose to spend Christmas on my own after one horrendous family Christmas too many.  It was such a bad experience that it forced me to finally admit that I had never really enjoyed family Christmases, finding them an utterly miserable experience which couldn't end too soon - forced to spend several days of forced jollity at close quarters with people I didn't get on with at the best of times.  Since then, my Christmases have all been fabulous, spent doing what I want to do, when I want to do it.  I was able to ditch that bloody awful traditional Christmas dinner, for instance, not put up decorations if I didn't feel like it or watch Midnight bloody Mass on TV if I wasn't in the mood.  Yet, mention to anyone that I'm spending Christmas on my own and all I get are pitying looks and patronising comments.  Occasionally I even get half-hearted invitations to Christmas dinner, (which I obviously decline).  Which is why, these days, I'm always evasive as to my plans if asked what I'm doing for Christmas, (except with close friends, who know me well enough to know that being alone is what I enjoy, of course).  So, to get back to the point, as ever, I'd just like the bloody media and the UK's do-gooders, to stop making assumptions and to stop generalising about us 1.8 million who are apparently spending Christmas on our own - for many of us, it's a choice.