Crazy little thing called love

You’ve got to hand it to Twitter, though. For a communications medium with such a remarkably daft name – the difference between ‘tweet’ and ‘twit’ is exactly the same as the difference between ‘idiot’ and ‘eedjit’, and neither is particularly flattering – it can be an incredibly expressive tool.

Consider the following tweet by Karl Gouder, a former Nationalist MP: “Today is an important Day for Malta, just wish that the party I love so much could have done more to get to this day” [sic].

Isn’t it wonderful? Ninety-two characters in total (excluding spaces), and yet it somehow manages to convey more meaning than all 24 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica put together. Not only that… but you can remove 88 of those 92 characters, and it would still say a lot more than most people are able to communicate in an entire lifetime.

Because you will be left with the four most important characters of all time. The one thing we all need, according to a certain Beatles song. The thing that Ambrose Bierce described as ‘temporary insanity that can be cured by marriage’, and which Joy Division warned would ‘tear us apart’ in the end.

Yup, you got it. LOVE! That force from above, whose mysterious power first inspired Frankie to go to Hollywood. The radius of that circle in which one may be targeted by Eros’ heart-shaped little arrows. The realm of sweet tender nothings whispered softly into one’s ears. The eternal, ineffable… effing little thing that no poet has ever managed to precisely define, yet has never stopped trying since the dawn of time.

Perhaps the Nationalist Party's consistent outward snub towards one particular minority group actually betrays a vulnerability of its own

Ah, LOVE! Who would not be instantly transported to the Garden of Earthly Delights by the mere mention of that one syllable alone?

But that, of course, is only when the love story has a happy ending. Alas, poor Gouder! Unrequited love, by way of contrast, is the stuff of sheer tragedy: a door that gives onto corridors of melancholy and eternal woe. It descends on those defenceless, and flings open the floodgates of bitterness, anguish and despair. Worse still, it inspires insufferably forlorn geeks like Giacomo Leopardi to sigh endlessly alone on an “ermo colle” somewhere – accompanied by a chorus of Third Formers’ sighs of boredom three centuries later – as their gaze languishes on a distant, unreachable vision of impossible desire…

“E fango e’ il mondo”, etc.

For this is ultimately what makes Karl Gouder’s tweet so utterly expressive. Much as he loves his party, there can be no hiding the fact that his party has not shown any signs of reciprocating those feelings thus far. All Karl Gouder’s lovin’, it would seem, is currently stuck in one-way traffic. Like Neil Diamond, he discovered that the more he gave, the less he got. And in one tiny little tweet, you can almost hear the voice of Colin Young in the distance: “And worst of all: you never call, baby, when you say you will… But I love you still…!”

And he is not alone in this unloved predicament, either. Yes, I know it sounds bizarre (it’s the weird sort of country we are) but many people out there ‘love’ the Nationalist Party with equal passion. Same goes for the Labour Party. And hey, there may even be a little tenderness and cuddles out there for Alternattiva Demokratika, too. Love, after all, knows no political colour. And as for size… well, lots of people have told me it doesn’t really matter.

And let’s not ruin the romantic mood by questioning why, exactly, all this communal love finds itself directed towards such unlikely targets in the first place. There must be dozens of perfectly valid reasons why people fall hopelessly in love with political parties. The fact that I can’t for the life of me think of a single one is – not unlike the PN’s stand on civil unions – neither here nor there.

My point, however, is that many among the PN’s army of lovers seem to share Gouder’s overall sentiment that the power of Eros is in somewhat short supply at the Stamperija these days. They perceive that the luvin’ feeling is gone, gone, gone. Like Leopardi, they may gaze wistfully from a distance on the object of their desire, patiently awaiting the day when it finally acknowledges their existence, and opens its doors to enfold them in its warm embrace... but like Karl Gouder, they will audibly sigh or groan each time the party they adore so much openly flirts with other special interest groups, or otherwise defecates on all they hold dear.

But hang on, let’s not be too hasty. You know how it is with this crazy little thing called love. Who’s to say? The Nationalist Party may indeed love Karl Gouder, and all the other despondent castaways from its affections, too. For all we know the Stamperija may even harbour passionate, amorous feelings of its own behind that frosty concrete exterior, and beneath that Polidano-built kontrabejt. But like millions of problematic spouses the world over, it might just have a funny way of showing it, that’s all.

So when its admirers expect their beloved party to go beyond mere words, and to embrace the principle of equality in its actions, too… for instance, by voting in favour of a law that will give same-sex couples rights equivalent to those of married couples… why, the party will go ahead and do the clean opposite. It will abstain on the vote out of reservations over adoption rights… because of course, ‘equality’ demands that some people have to be treated differently. Some people have to be subjected to social impact studies to determine whether they would make a good parent or not... and to hammer the discrimination home, it will simultaneously issue a tweet to inform us that it agrees with civil unions in principle.

In other words, it only disagrees with the one specific aspect of the law that only affects same-sex couples.

Ouch. I must concede, it doesn’t exactly sound like a very loving, caring or tender way to treat an entire substratum of the population. Not quite the sort of message you’d put in a Valentine’s Day card, now is it? But hey, I could be mistaken. It could just as easily be the Nationalist Party’s way of playing hard-to-get… outwardly snubbing and spurning its love-stricken admirers, not because it doesn’t care, but only because it cares too much. Each man kills the thing he loves, etc…

Or wait: maybe the explanation is simpler. Maybe it’s just shy. Not everyone is capable of outpouring their emotions very easily, you know. Mediterranean machismo, and all that. So perhaps the Nationalist Party’s consistent outward snub towards one particular minority group actually conceals a suppressed inner vulnerability of its own. Perhaps its open disdain for some of its own voters is just the psychological reversal of a much deeper underlying sense of yearning: a jealously guarded secret love, that is only waiting for the right moment to come pouring out in great, gushing sobs…

So cheer up, Karl! Hope springs eternal in the human breast. Perhaps the impossible love you sigh about may not be so impossible after all. Maybe, just maybe, if you wait long enough the Nationalist Party will indeed one day transform into something capable of reciprocating all its spurned lovers’ wasted emotions. And most important of all: something that actually deserves all this boundless love that gets lavished upon it from all directions.

But this, I fear, only raises a whole bunch of other questions. How long does one have to wait? Does one keep hanging on forever? Or is there a point when, after suffering years of patient neglect or abuse, the wistful lover finally gives up on his or her forlorn hope, and drifts off to pastures new?

I guess it all boils down to the most enduring question of all time. The one question poets and philosophers have spent entire lifetimes trying in vain to answer.

What is love?

Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more…