Just a few months ago we were in the far east of Russia, where we celebrated my wife’s birthday. We threw a party for the occasion. Nothing hugely grandiose, just a nice meal in a very decent restaurant.

For this occasion friends and relatives came from far afield. I was astounded that certain came from the next main town which is 200 kilometers away and three hours driving time on a pretty bad road. Just for comparison’s sake, this is roughly the distance between Taormina and Malta! They ate and they had fun, then immediately after, they happily hopped back into their cars and travelled back to get home around breakfast time.

An invitation is an invitation and a get together is something you just do not miss.

But without going to these extremes, in most countries when you organize something, you start off by deciding on how many guests you would like to have. If you want 30 – then you invite 30 and the minute you invite people, you get an instant reply. So by the day after 28 confirm and they write it down in red ink in their diaries, red representing blood and being as strong and binding as a death wish. Two immediately inform you that they will be abroad and therefore unfortunately cannot attend.

And there you go, it’s all sorted. So you are happy with 28, you cater for 28 and believe it or not, what a coincidence, you actually end up with exactly 28 on the day. No deaths, no diarrheas, no punctures, no strange illnesses coming from nowhere, no nothing – just 28!

Then there is Malta.

You decide you want to have 30, so first and foremost you invite 60. If you send out the invite well in advance, for an entire ten days you hear absolutely nothing from no one at all, by which time you really start to wonder if anyone even received it.

Then when you’re just about going to ask them all, you receive your very first reply and only because you’re chatting with one of them by chance. “Yes I’ll let you know if I need that favour from you and I probably will and oh btw regarding that invite you sent us, we will let you know later, cause we’re still not sure what we’re doing. It is next week anyway so there’s still plenty of time to let you know what we might or might not feel like”.

Over the next few days, as your party draws closer, out of 60 you receive just a few similar non-replies. Yes, perhaps, maybe, we’ll see what we feel like on the day. It might be sunny, it might be raining, and what’s on TV on that day?

But naturally you need to make preparations and to purchase the necessary food and drinks. So you yourself chase them all, desperately hounding them down to see if they are interested in coming to your party.

By three days before you only obtain 15 firm confirmations, 15 definite no’s and 30 who blatantly tell you, right in your face and in so many words, that they are keeping their options open. Maybe, we’ll see, it depends, and no matter how much you push they simply won’t budge.

These are the pros, the slick party goers who rake in their many invitations. They never accept or turn down anything, and just leave it as a maybe until the very end. Then they jump into their car and simply flit from event to event at leisure, doing exactly as they please at the time.

They proudly ponce in and out of people’s homes and leave after a few minutes if deemed boring, or remain there and forget all the others, if they are having a great time. For the world is theirs and their crass behaviour is fuelled by more and more invitations rolling in.

So as long as they remain in high demand, they will continue their charade and will never commit to anything in advance. Then the next time they see you, it will either be a matter of – Oh what a great time we had and you know what, we’ll let you in on a little secret. We had twelve other parties on the night but preferred yours. Or it will be – Oh so sorry we didn’t make it, but we were really unwell and stayed in bed on the day.

So where does this leave you only three days before your party, with only 15 definite yes’s? Well you rightly start to panic, so you invite another 20 at the last minute. Now it is you who is forced to lie, as to why you are inviting them so late in the day, desperately trying not to make them feel anything more than an afterthought.

But nobody minds and nobody cares, you could call someone and say – Listen, we’re organizing a party in exactly half an hour, would you like to come along? And many would say – Well we don’t normally plan things so much in advance, but as it seems that we have nothing better to do, why not.

So by the day of your party you had the original 15 who confirmed, plus another ten from your late invites, making it 25 in all. However, eight of the original 15 had later canceled and were replaced by a different eight, four of whom were previously define no’s and the other four were maybe’s.

So it just goes on and on, every hour people cancelling and others confirming. Two are suddenly sick and three have been miraculously cured. Two know that they will be unwell a week in advance, another just remembered of a more important engagement. One neighbour’s cat just died and will have to stay with her mourning. Three have had other engagements canceled and can now come along and two are bringing friends, family and house guests with them, jst for good measure.

So you follow the hourly fluctuation like some mad stock exchange index gone wild. You were down to ten at one moment, then up to 45 only hours later. By this time you have long given up and just sit back and watch in total amusement, at which new lie and excuse you will next encounter. Two people have confirmed and canceled and reconfirmed four times in a row.

You just take a wild guess and cater for 30 as was your original plan. You have no idea of who is even meant to come in the end, and simply don’t care any more.

Then come those crucial last few hours when your numbers just plummet once more. Sudden diarrheas, unexpected hospital visits, car breakdowns, kids with fevers, sudden rashes, anything and everything, all the world’s grief pains and sorrows suddenly collectively afflicting so many of your guests. People cancel who you never even thought were coming, as do the only ones who confirmed from day one.

Then in the last strike of incredulous fate, when it all happens, many of those who never canceled don’t even turn up, while so many others who never even bothered answering you arrive. All the ones who were meant to be trekking in the Himalayas and boarding on round the world cruise ships are suddenly there, while your self-proclaimed closest friends who insisted they would’t miss it in the world, disappear from the face of the earth, leaving not even a ring tone on their phones…

People you don’t even know are there. Brothers, sisters, girlfriends and friends of friends. In the end you somehow made 25, which is more than fine with you.

Even the day after while you’re there hungover and painfully clearing the mess, you still have no idea who turned up. But who cares anyway, it’s not like in civilized countries where people thank each other after attending a party, or thank you back for bringing a gift. So you really don’t even have to know these things, and who those people were inside your home.

I love Malta and the Maltese people especially for their strong principles of valour and loyalty and honesty, always letting you know exactly where you stand. You are clearly always in no-man’s-land, that’s where you stand, now get used to it, because it’s not going to get any better, that’s for sure.