Christmas can be a hard time for people who live alone and don't have close friends. They cannot celebrate Christmas in the way it is suggested by Christmas carols, Christmas stories, and Christmas advertising. They cannot spend the Christmas Eve joyful and peaceful with family and friends. How should they, when there is no family and when there are no friends?
They can go to their local pub or some other place where they usually hang out and meet the regulars there. Most of the other visitors also don't have a family or friends. So they all stand or sit together drinking and talking rubbish. It is kind of a family, though a dysfunctional one. Maybe it should be rather called a brotherhood -- the brotherhood of the lonely hearts. The men are an allegorical brotherhood who is converging in an allegorical "Lonely Hearts Club", sometimes listening to an allegorical "Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
It is a brotherhood, no women ever show up. There are lonely women too, but they stay home, looking TV, reading a book, writing their most heartfelt thoughts into a diary which maybe nobody ever will read. Alternatively they hang out on a social networking site or publish their most heartfelt thoughts as a blog post.
Men go out and drink, women stay home, so they never meet.
Why should the lonely women go out to a pub where a few dozen unhappy and to various degrees intoxicated men are standing or sitting around, looking at any females with a strange mixture of craving, anxiousness, insolence, and contempt?
Of course, there will be nice guys in the "Lonely Hearts Club" crowd, but quite a few will be loners, losers, sexists, misogynists, and otherwise deranged personalities. They will set the tone, and visiting such a place is a recipe for trouble.
Suicide rates don't go up during Christmas, they actually decline, at least according to statistics. Why should suicides increase? Being alone is hard at any time of the year, not only at Christmas. The lonely and terribly sad guys will make it a few more month, as the hopelessness and pointlessness of their existence slowly sinks in. The terribly sad guys will spare their suicide till spring.
The lonely and terribly sad guys would not have to suffer, they would not have to indulge in their melancholy and they would not have to feel unloved, unwanted, useless. They would not have to let their pain accumulate to the point where they simply cannot take it any longer.
They would not even need to be alone at Christmas!
The sad and lonely souls of course have not chosen to be alone. They would like to have a family and close friends. They don't have a mate because they are either not attractive, poor, dumb, or have unrealistic expectations about a prospective partner. Many of them don't see themselves as ugly or dumb, and they reject persons as inadequate who in fact would be a good match and perfectly fit to them.
The ones who are aware of their unattractiveness and rightfully consider themselves as misfits will rather hide in their caves than look out for equally unattractive misfits.
In any case, we live in a superficial and shallow world and having a good looking partner is a status symbol. Many prefer to have no partner than to share their life with an ugly one that would maybe deflate their status.
Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, how true, but today beauty is standardized (and commoditized) like everything else. If your face is not symmetric, if your nose is too big, your eyebrows are too bushy, and your skin is not fair and spotless, you are simply out of luck.
If you are born ugly and poor and daft, you will have a hard time. If you are only ugly and daft, you can at least try cosmetic surgery. If you are ugly and intelligent, you will acquire skills that will make you attractive over time. You will learn and develop your personality. Over the years you will increase your charisma and your face will more and more reflect your personality. You will be respected and admired.
But this is a long and winding road to go and there are only a few hours till Christmas Eve! How can the lonely souls make it through the upcoming holidays without being depressed, discouraged, dispirited, saddened, damaged, crushed?
Well, you will maybe not be able to find the love of your life in the few hours till Christmas. But you can find someone who needs you and will depend on you and maybe will even trust you and like you.
Go to an animal shelter and adopt a cat!
The animal asylums are overcrowded and many cats have to be euthanized because nobody wants them. You can save the life of an innocent creature who like you is lonely and forsaken and desperately wants to have a home, a warm place, somebody to cuddle with.
Please, go there and look, you will see old and young and pretty and ugly cats. Don't take the beautiful, take the ugly one, this is the cat that will not easily find a host. This is the cat that most likely will adore you and will be grateful and love you with every fibre of its little heart. This is the cat who will wait for you when you come home and be joyous and meow as loud as she or he can.
This is the cat who will sit on your lap softly purring and who will put its little head in your hand and who will sigh and stretch and relax and who will be happy just for being able to be near you.
Take your cat mate home and show her or him your place. Maybe you need to buy a litter box and some toys or a scratching post. If you are in a quiet area without much traffic you can let the cat out, but not until she or he got accustomed to the house. If you need to keep your cat friend indoors you have to play with and comfort the cat. One hour a day will be required to keep your companion entertained.
Maybe not everything will work out smoothly right away. Don't be discouraged when the cat pees on your precious persian carpet or throws down an expensive vase. Don't forget, this cat is a living creature, it will be your friend and companion, it will become more precious and important than any of your material possessions.
This Christmas you will not be alone, you will be petting, caressing, fondling your little friend. You will be feeding your cat and you will be playing with your cat and talking with your cat. You will maybe sit on the computer with the cat beside you, looking up all cat-help sites and gathering infos about how to keep a cat pleased and healthy.
Don't forget, this is a longtime (lifelong) commitment! You cannot divorce your cat, you simply cannot do that! From now on you have to share your life with your cat friend, no matter what happens. Don't worry, the cat will give you back all the love and it will give it back twice. If you are a caring person and you have love to give, everything will work out.
If you don't want to commit yourself and adopt a cat, you maybe will find solace listening to one of the most ingenious songs in pop history, Gilbert O'Sullivan's composition ALONE AGAIN.
When a little while from now,
If I'm not feeling any less sour,
I promise myself to treat myself
And visit a nearby tower.
When climbing to the top
Will throw myself off
In an effort to make it clear to who
Ever what it's like when you're shattered,
Left standing in the lurch
By a church with people saying
"My God, that's tough, she's stood him up.
No point in us remaining,
We may as well go home."
As I did on my own,
Alone again, naturally.
To think that only yesterday,
I was cheerful, bright and gay,
Looking forward to, well who wouldn't do
The role I was about to play;
But as if to knock me down,
Reality came around
And without so much, as a mere touch
Cut me into little pieces,
Leaving me to doubt,
Talk about God in his mercy,
Who, if He really does exist
Why did he desert me?
In my hour of need
I truly am indeed
Alone again, naturally.
It seems to me that there are more hearts
Broken in the world that can't be mended,
Left unattended;
What do we do?
What do we do?
{Break}
Now looking back over the years,
And whatever else that appears;
I remember I cried, when my father died,
Never wishing to hide the tears;
At sixty-five years old,
My mother, God rest her soul,
Couldn't understand why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken;
Leaving her to start
With a heart so badly broken,
Despite encouragement from me
No words were ever spoken.
And when she passed away
I cried and cried all day;
Alone again, naturally
Alone again, naturally
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen