Abroad

Smile like you mean it

To cope with the anxiety of unstructured socialising as an introvert, I've developed a charismatic 'on the job' alter ego. It has totally backfired.

Cristina Carmona Aliaga

Dec 06, 2024

Margaret Qualley pictured by Greg Williams, British Vogue (May 2024)

Hello dear readers,

I hope these words find you sane.

As anyone living in the Northern hemisphere and adhering to the Christian tradition of Christmas knows, December is a total shitshow. Any remaining trace of mental sanity you’ve managed to preserve until now has to be protected at all costs in order to survive the impending string of social engagements which start long before the Christmas festivities.

December usually finds me completely depleted of my capacity to pretend I want to be around others. The mask falls off and I activate my hermit mode knowing I’ll be going home for the holidays, a journey I can only describe as a desert crossing without any drinking water nearby, a joyful experience for which I must store all my mental energy if I want to survive it. Although the truth is the moment I step on the platform to board the train towards Gatwick airport, my will to live leaves my body as if sucked off by Dementor and it doesn’t return until spring is well under way.

If you usually complain about being tired of staying in London during this period of the year and long for a white Christmas abroad, I can’t recommend highly enough flying to a foreign country, preferably one where Christmas is a very big deal and as close as possible to the 24th December as you can. If nothing else, it’ll help you appreciate how good you actually have it by not having to jump through fire hoops to get a ticket on any means of transportation (all invariably delayed, overbooked, and with high risk of cancellation) that you are required to take to get to your final destination (which you’ll reach with any luck 13 hours later even though the flight is roughly 2 hours).

But that trip, as delightful as it sounds, is still in the future and today I’m here to talk about the present and one of the most dreaded rites of passage of December: The great Christmas catch up.

Come mid-November every work inbox, personal email, group chat, whatsapp, DM, supermarket receipt, newspaper ad, and even tube announcement seem to be the vessel of one single message: It’d be great to catch up before Christmas.

Great for who, I wonder. Maybe for the sender, but has anyone asked the recipient? Did they request a Christmas catch up to be sent their way? Has anyone heard of consent?

It’s about time we considered unsolicited invitations to meet before the holidays as inappropriate as dick pics. I’ll go even farther: They’re even more disturbing than dick pics as they often come from someone you thought you could trust.

Jesus, Simon, you were the last person I would have expected this from. I don’t think I’ll be able to look at you in the same way. What were you thinking about when you sent me that? What made you think I wanted to meet for a drink in bloody December? Get a grip on, for Christ’s sake and stop begging for human interaction. Be normal for once and live online like we all do, relying on validation from strangers who only message you to kill time while they’re on the toilet but who at least are considerate enough to not ask to meet with you before the holidays or ever for that matter.

My perception is that in London, and I assume in the UK by extension, the run-up to Christmas is a peak social time because Christmas itself is a two-day affair as opposed to the three-week seasons greetings galore it is in Spain, unofficially starting on the 22nd December and lasting until 7th January.

Back home people don’t arrange to meet up before Christmas because that is what the holidays are for and there are ample opportunities to bump into each other spontaneously as we go from one breakfast/ coffee/pre-lunch drinks/ lunch/coffee/pre-dinner drinks/ dinner to another, not to mention the rota of family visits and its corresponding offer of food.

Spanish etiquette demands that you shall not plan a Christmas catch up with anyone you actually want to meet up with because they’ll be sucked into the same never-ending food and drinks cycle as you. Instead, when you bump into each other as you head to your next comilona , you should apply the principle of “ Luego te escribo y vemos .” Which roughly translates as if it’s meant to be, it’ll be and we’ll feel it in our stomachs, so let’s not force it because we both know we are one polvorón away from a food coma.

Your stomach after the second polvorón vs after the eight.

Which leads me to another theory.

These invitations to catch up in December in the UK often come from people you don’t have any valid reason, or genuine interest, to catch up with. Your real friends don’t want to meet before the holidays. They’re as stressed out as you are about the whole thing and sending a message to ask if they’d like to get a drink at this time of the year could seriously compromise the future of your friendship.

What with work deadlines, office parties, school celebrations, in-laws visiting or you travelling to them (maybe even internationally), you’ll see each other when you’ll see each other. Your friendship is not so fragile that you have to make a pre-Christmas meeting happen at all cost.

Quite the opposite: you show up for your real friends during this period by not showing up, respecting the little sanity they have left, if any, and their right to fit in as many mince pies and Christmas movies into their day as they wish. And that’s why your friendship has stood the test of time, and Christmas. Because you only contact them to suggest silly movies and where to watch them for free.

So who does actually reach out for that unnecessary end-of-the-year pre-Christmas catch up?

People who believe they are on friendly terms with you. Which means people you know mostly through work. Which means people who don’t know you at all nor have a chance of being friends with you if they insist on meeting before Christmas.

If there is a bullet you want to dodge, the one carrying work-related unrequited friendship all over it is probably it. People who send you an invitation to meet when you’re one “All I Want for Christmas is You” away from losing your shit belong into the tenth circle of hell, or in Winter Wonderland, which is its physical manifestation on earth.

Accepting to meet socially for a drink with someone you’ve worked or collaborated with -and who is not a colleague- is always a mistake. Especially if the invitation is for a one to one rendez-vous. You’re only fuelling the hope that you could indeed become friends with these people, who probably are convinced your relationship is based on sincere interest and not the money you’re paid to nurture these connections. This is an open invitation for drama and broken dreams.

But Cristina, how are we supposed to make friends as adults when most of us only meet new people through work? Honestly, that’s not my problem.

My problem is why I am at the receiving end of these invitations to celebrate what for me is work and therefore I don’t understand why should be celebrated in first place and for others is I don’t know what exactly.

Why can’t people stick to treating me as a business contact and send their crappy company Christmas email -look, this year we’ve designed it with Midjourney- like everyone does instead of going to such lengths and offering me every possible date they would be available to meet? Aren’t these people happy in their lives? Is that why they so desperately need to escape their reality by meeting with me? Of all people they must know am I seriously to believe I’m the best they can do?

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As the latest email from a work contact offering to meet before Christmas lands in my inbox, I need to take a moment to absorb its content.

It follows the standard structure of these invitations until it takes an unexpected 180 turn. The last line states that this person would be delighted to have the opportunity to “thank me for all my invaluable insights and celebrate our nascent friendship.”

I don’t want to encourage their delusion with a positive response, but I have to be diplomatic in my rejection. And yet it is not lost on me that if we were truly on the brink of becoming friends, they would have known better than to put me in this predicament.

“I think the problem is that you’re too friendly with people,” a good friend I confide in for advice tells me. It’s not the first time I’ve come to her to sense check how to navigate social interactions that I find a bit perplexing and it’s not the last time I’ll hear her say these words to me.

She is someone who has witnesses both my work and personal self on a number of settings and therefore is aware of a slight schism between the two. While not a divide of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde scale, it is significant enough for me to be perceived as friendlier than I normally am. “Not everyone understands that you’re mostly engaging with them for work, not because you actually want to.”

While this is accurate, it still fails to account fully for why these unrequited friendships and invitations to catch up for no reason -other than foster a relationship that only exists in the head of these people- keep springing out of nowhere.

I believe the root of such problematic behaviour stems from the fact that I am an introvert in an extrovert’s job.

As someone who feels uncomfortable in large groups of people and unfamiliar settings, but who has ended up in a job where being able to build rapport quickly with strangers in a wide range of situations is a very valuable asset, when I started my previous job in London I realised that the only way I would be able to overcome both the social anxiety these situations cause me and my natural aversion to speaking to strangers -while keeping my job- was to pretend I was someone else.

If I didn’t think it was me interacting with people I didn’t know, and instead thought of me as a character whose role was to be sociable, I realised it was a bit more manageable and I felt less self-conscious and awkward. Over time I must have polished this on the job persona to its current iteration: someone welcoming, smiling, interested in what others have to say, willing to help when I actually can, and enthusiastic about what people do or who they are beyond the job title. Essentially, I’ve become the kind of person I would have loved to come across and speak with at my previous job.

As I wrote about before, landing in a business setting was very far from my professional aspirations. I felt very much out of place and clueless when I arrived in London and had to attend an inhuman number of events with musty people closer to reincarnation than to pension age and who made me wish I was born without ears so I didn’t have to listen to all the crap they talked about as I felt my neurons slowly die.

A classic tale of transformation where you become the opposite of what you despise and which is supposed to be uplifting and inspiring. Except that in my case it has backfired.

What I thought would be a useful technique to help me has resulted in a curious paradox whereby the people who know me mostly through work often describe me as helpful, warm, generous, supportive, some go as far as to say knowledgeable, or even hilarious (this one is true), while the people who actually do know me are unimpressed and in most cases rather shocked to hear any of those adjectives in relation to me (except for hilarious, there’s agreement on that one) as they have premium VIP access to the backstage of my real personality.

So here I am, trapped into an idealised version of myself I have contributed to create when all I ever wanted was to afford paying the bills and ease the crippling anxiety that being in unfamiliar places with total strangers causes me.

Now I’m stuck with a work alter ego so polished that most acquaintances take it for the real me, which has become a liability as more often than not I find myself balancing how to decline invitations to socialise without burning any bridges (you never know when you may need to reach out to someone in my line of business) but also without leaving the door open to future requests. This is way above my pay grade, I can tell you that much.

Of course the sociopaths among you will be appalled at my confession.

I’m sure you’re desperate to jump at the opportunity to interact with people you barely know and can’t even see why this is an issue for me. Especially now, when everyone has already entered the holiday mood, and the lights are up and it’s nice to go out and enjoy the festive atmosphere in the cold, crisp winter weather as you sip a hot mulled wine. I bet you’re ideal get together is swinger’s party in Santa Claus’s Artic Circle house on 25th December. Plenty of strangers to mingle with and no shortage of Christmas balls hanging around to admire.

Some of us, on the other hand, prefer to mislead people into thinking we are a much better version of ourselves than we actually are as a way of coping with the existential dread that overcomes us when we find ourselves in an unstructured social setting with more than five people at once.

Personally, I think it’s a crime we aren’t given the credit we deserve for our outstanding acting skills, especially this time of the year, where we create the illusion of holding it together effortlessly when we’d rather be at home in our pyjamas watching Bridget Jones’ Diary for the tenth time and stuffing our faces with pandoro for dinner.

My kind of networking event

Instead, life punishes us with an overwhelming amount of requests to meet up when we’re at our wit’s end so that we can be told in person how much a bunch of random strangers we wouldn’t have even met were it not because we’re paid to speak with them value our friendship and support when we struggle to remember what we have done for them or why.

Why indeed.

Where are the strict societal norms and restrictions of Victorian England when you most need them? This used to be a serious country, now it’s only a den for Christmas idlers and well-wishers who feel they can approach an unchaperoned lady when they please.

“It’s because you actually listen to people,” my friend adds as I carry on detailing how the bane of my existence makes me the object of many people’s desires.

“That’s not true,” I protest. “I’m completely drained 20 minutes into an event, so I’ve given my all to the first couple of people I speak with. From then onwards it all goes downhill as I can’t barely talk anymore.”

“Exactly, you’re proving my point. You know how these work events are. People go there to talk about themselves, and because you’re so tired you can’t even speak, they appreciate that you don’t cut them off.”

“Because I’m exhausted not because I’m listening to them!”

“They don’t know that, do they?,” she’s of course right. “Listen, just say to this person you can’t meet before Christmas and that’s it, you don’t own them a list of reasons explaining you’re not actually friends with them. Don’t get hung up on that.” I have an infinite amount of admiration for this friends’ matter of factly approach to situations that for me lead to a full reassessment of my life’s decisions since I was in kindergarden.

“But what can I say so that they don’t ask again?”

“You’ll figure something out, be polite but don’t over explain.”

If it weren’t for this friend who knows my ‘on the job’ and ‘off the job’ settings and can see the full picture of my two divided selves, I would probably have sent by now a fully reasoned two-page word document to every work contact who offers to meet up for a coffee or drink apologising for having led them to believe we were, or indeed could ever be, more than work acquaintances, no matter how friendly, supportive, and helpful I seemed to them.

“I’ve been faking the smiles since we met. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m paid for it,” I’d probably add for good measure to nip any nascent friendship at the bud and make it clear a personal relationship cannot flourish in my heart with people I’ve crossed paths with through the excruciating act of networking, cold outreach and business partnerships.

Which doesn’t mean we can’t continue to explore potential avenues of collaboration in the future as we have a couple of interesting projects in the pipeline for which I’d love to pick their brains on. Via teams or zoom; better use protection and put a screen in between us just in case they get the wrong idea.

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I leave the email invitation in my inbox for a couple of days before I find the strength to reply. It is key not to seem too eager if I want to wriggle my way out of it successfully. Given I’ve been offered every possible date in December with the exception of weekends, my excuse has to be rock solid and able to stand a potential counter-offer to meet in the New Year and yet it has to convey a sense of regret at not being able to accept it.

I’m seriously not paid enough for this.

I can’t use that I have a cold because they know through a colleague I have been recovering from one so it’d be suspicious I’ve caught another immediately after.

I can’t say that I’m about to go on holiday because there are still two full weeks of December where I’m working and they’ll catch me in a lie the moment they don’t get an out of the office response.

I can’t say that I am unavailable every possible date they’ve offered because it’s unrealistic and I would personally prefer someone told me they are hibernating until further notice. At least it’s more plausible.

How didn’t I think about that before?

After all, a recent survey by Costa Coffee has revealed that a third of Brits expect to cancel Christmas catch ups this year, so why not be done once and for all?

“Dear ....

Thank you for reaching out and lovely to receive your message (why, oh why, you are putting me through this ordeal if you aspire to be my friend is beyond my understanding)

It’s certainly been an intense year and as you’ve said I’m glad our paths have crossed (I’ll be regretting it until the day I die). Thank you for your kind words, I really appreciate it (I really don’t know what you are possibly thanking me for, but I’ll roll with it because I honestly don’t have time for this now)

Unfortunately I will have to decline your invitation to meet before Christmas as from the end of October I’ve been attending several events and I believe they may have taken its toll on my health (Please, have mercy, it’s December. I can barely remember my full name let alone yours).

As I’d like to be on top form before I travel back home, which I’m looking forward to, (the lies one tells to survive!) I’m afraid I must pass on your invitation on this occasion as I am in my resting winter period and not accepting social invitations until March (sic) but I’m sure there’ll be other opportunities to reconnect in 2025 after then (I sincerely hope there aren’t).

Have a lovely Christmas (I mean that )”

Happy new year to you too and bye until 2026!

Feeling pretty smug, I click send, relived I’ve finally lifted off this burden from my shoulders. This is a bulletproof response that will guarantee a peaceful existence at least until the summer of 2025, where I might be more inclined to face the London season, weather permitting.

A few minutes later, I receive a response to my email. Surely to say thank you for replying and exchange best wishes for the upcoming holidays and new year. To my dismay, it’s an invitation to ‘pencil in the diary something for us to catch up properly over lunch in the spring’ followed by almost every day in April -with the exception of weekends and Easter.

It was only a matter of time, why delay the unavoidable?

“Dear...,

I apologise if I have in any way, shape or form mislead you to believe there was anything else than pure business and transactional interest from my side.

I’ve been faking all the smiles. It’s not you, it’s me. Hope you don’t take it personally because I do it with everyone. I’m paid for it.

Let’s however keep in touch to discuss a couple of potential opportunities in the new year that I believe could be of interest for you. Will send Teams link for video call.”

Cristina Carmona Aliaga • Smile like you mean it