It is as inevitable as nougat, Christmas carols or the family dinner with the brother-in-law full of uncomfortable comments: Christmas gatherings with friends from school, high school, university or old job have become a canonical event that is difficult to give up. Some suffer from it more than others. “How do I summarize to someone everything that has happened to me in a year?” says Rosa (not her real name), a 50-year-old woman who has already gotten tired of going to these meetings. All testimonies in this article—except for the advice of psychologists—have been collected with the promise of anonymity. They don’t want to look bad with those old friends with whom they have less and less things in common.
Rosa used to meet up with her friends from law school around this time, but recently their personalities have diverged so much that she is no longer able to sit with them and chat as if nothing was happening, to pretend that they are in the same situation. or at the same vital point. During the year she still meets individually with two of the friends from this group, whom she does consider close, but she prefers to avoid the rest. “Their lives have changed so much that I no longer feel very integrated,” she explains.
His partner, sitting next to him, sees it in a more radical way: “No, I don’t have friends that I only see at Christmas. If they are friends, I try to go see them or meet them at other times of the year.” On dates with hyper-planned calendars, in which the cascade of reunions can saturate us, there are those who wonder why we should meet up right now if the ties have been weakened for a long time.
I go there as a silent majority, like that 50% of people who have no choice but to go because if not you will look terrible.
Carlos (pseudonym)
— 51 years
The dynamics of this type of event can be intense from the beginning. Someone in the group—Carlos, another of the interviewees (51 years old), calls him a “unifying figure”—is in charge of convening the rest, makes calls, sets up a WhatsApp group and convinces a sufficient number of people to hold the meeting. is perceived almost as mandatory. As if missing it was a lack of respect for the rest of the people who have made an effort to find a moment and get together. “I go there as a silent majority, like that 50% of people who have no choice but to go because if not you will look terrible,” he confesses.
Every year he meets up with his ‘friends’ from a previous job. “They were coworkers and they want us to get together at Christmas as if we were friends, but we are not friends, we were just coworkers,” he says. For him, “those friendships with people who don’t call you, who don’t care about you, who don’t take care of you, aren’t real.” So he goes and plays a role that is clear to him: “My role is to laugh thank you, talk to people when they no longer have anyone else to talk to, and try to avoid the questions they ask me about my life. Then dinner is over and bye, until next year.” But he acknowledges that his view on the matter is somewhat “pessimistic” and that “there are people who need these types of meetings and they like them and they do them good.”
Juan Antonio Román, psychologist at the Acierta Psicología clinic, explains that the way we approach these encounters depends a lot on the type of person we are. Extroverts, he explains, become energized when they are in large, busy groups. Introverts, however, find these meetings exhausting, and would do well to look for small outlets to regain strength. “These types of profiles can look for tasks to get away from the group and lower the intensity, or go out from time to time to get some air to calm down,” advises Román. “Each person should find their own strategies to deal with this.”
They are the rituals of Christmas: there are the gifts, the annoying brother-in-law and reconnecting with that past life from high school or the career in which we were different people. I think it could be nice
Rodrigo (pseudonym)
— 37 years
Rodrigo, a 37-year-old man from Madrid, understands these meetings in a different way than the older interviewees. “I think there are two different cases: that of the friendships that you maintain out of commitment, because if you return to your city how can you not have a drink with those people who have been so important to you. But there are also lifelong friends who may live far away and it’s okay if you see them once a year. “It’s like no time has passed,” he says. “I have a friend in Australia, we see each other once a year, but when he comes and we chat for a while it is as if no time had passed and in a few moments you regain the trust you had in that person.” They are the rites of Christmas, says Rodrigo: “There are the gifts, the annoying brother-in-law and reconnecting with that past life from high school or the career in which we were different people. I think it could be nice.”
The most damaging part of these meetings may lie not so much in the dinner, the alcohol or the nostalgia of a youth that has been romanticized, but in the differences that have been forged between each other – ideological, character, vital – and in the comparisons derived from these.
Psychologist María Delblanch explains that “in principle, connecting with childhood friends is useful, because it helps us reconnect with that part of our lives that we have lost or that we have left behind, and it is not bad to feel in that environment again. a little more childlike or youthful.” It may have its positive side to remember old battles, but at some point during the night that concern of comparing oneself with others can also come into play.
Well managed, these meetings can be useful to raise self-esteem and strengthen the sense of identity that each of us has.
Maria Delblanch
— psychologist
“Festinger’s comparison theory defends that people constantly compare themselves with other individuals to evaluate their own life decisions, and that we innately compare ourselves with people who are most similar to us,” says the psychologist. The individuals who may suffer the most in these meetings are not those who have achieved the least in life, in terms of money, family or professional success, but those with low self-esteem. It is these people, according to Delblanch, who come out of these calls thinking that they are doing much worse than others, although that is not the reality. “But, well managed, these meetings can be useful to raise self-esteem and strengthen the sense of identity that each of us has.”
In order not to suffer excessively, Delblanch recommends going to these Christmas gatherings with very clear expectations, being aware that social comparison is a common experience, and knowing how to identify the negative effects to stop in time and set limits. Instead of comparing yourself to others, it is also useful to focus solely on personal strengths, doing sports or sleeping well before the appointment, and finding one or two people within the group who can serve as support: “Those with whom you can sharing pleasant experiences without feeling the enormous pressure of the rest of the group.”
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