How dare you be different

I can be quite the coupon gift scheme girl. It's odd because it's not as if my life depends on thrift and I don't really need to be that way at all, and yet I seem to derive this great pleasure in the whole ritual. And quite unashamedly so. I enjoy freebies. I like collecting points on my card or miles on my flypass and then cashing them in. All those hard earned points, for some wooden outdoor piece of garden furniture - a table or deckchair I will probably never use, less still assemble.

It semi-amuses and bewilders my partner who would never sign up for one of those supermarket loyalty cards and would find whipping it out a chore-and-a-half and probably a little embarrassing. That sort of behaviour doesn't ring any of his chimes. Lidl, for instance, is a sore point in our relationship. I'm not in love with Lidl but I am in love with its turkey sausages. And besides, I don't feel uncomfortable shopping there. To me it's a store like many others, with great parking and certainly not a source of shame.

But so many seem reluctant to let on that they have shopped there. Everyone is hesitant to admit they do patronise the place from time to time, and if you happen to come across them in the aisles, they might pretend they haven't seen you, even look the other way or are otherwise very quick to proffer the raison d'être. In their mind there needs to be a reason for being there - so they'll say something like "They have such good yogurts - better than the reputable ones" or "I don't know what their prices are, really, I don't even know whether you save money after all, I just love their salamis, hams and cheeses."

I, on the other hand, don't feel the need to justify my presence there. I go because it happens to be another place to shop and if I save some money in the process, so much the better. All the more to then splash out on ridiculously expensive boots. I still shop everywhere else too, because Lidl isn't logistically close enough to qualify as a convenience store in my case and because when it comes to many items, like tea and jam, I have my personal favourites. I have no qualms about Lidl or their carrier bags - a no no for most. I take them everywhere with me. Maybe it's a form of inverted snobbery. The shock element people seem to think I possess. Ooooh Lidl... what a shocker!

Malta does that to you. You can't really be yourself completely and entirely. Sooner or later it takes its toll and you sort of end up compromising yourself. You wear a headscarf or a hat and you're analysed to kingdom come. Things are infinitely better today than they were when I donned outrageous outfits. I wore headscarves and leg warmers in Florence and all sorts of leopard print outfits in the US, but here you're made to feel like you're trying to make this great big statement. And slowly but surely you succumb to the pressure.

Things that go by unnoticed and unobserved everywhere else seem very loud and larger than life here. It's very tiring. And no matter how much you claim not to care less, it catches up with you until you wake up one day and find you have no choice but to take off the bandanna, lose the bohemia. And be dull.

When I read Chiara's interview about weight and whose business is it anyway if you want to stuff yourself silly or eat yourself to death, I sympathised. During a brief stay in Florence in the early 1990s, I met an African American girl and struck up a close friendship. She was definitely on the large side - except I didn't quite realise just how large she was until she visited me in Malta some time later.

It was so very odd. Somehow in Florence her size hadn't really been an issue - in Malta it suddenly was. It literally felt like she was too bulky for this island. The stares were so penetrating that I hate to say I was happy to see the back of her when her time was up. It just wasn't the same anymore.

In Malta, our friendship couldn't thrive the way it had done in the past. We were constantly being studied. And I'm often transported to that place and time when I see black people walking the streets here or waiting at bus stops, limits of Marsa or Hal Far. I'm always rather intrigued because black people are often very graceful and gazelle-like in their movements. I have come across them all over the world, but seeing them in Malta somehow is rather unlike seeing them anywhere else and that in itself is significant. They stand out like sore thumbs.

For such a long time it was just us. Now it's a melting pot of ethnicities - you get to see and hear all sorts of people on this little rock - Asians, Africans, Russians - and I must say I rather like it. All over the world they fit in beautifully and go by unnoticed. And yet they still manage to look incongruous here. It must mean something - there must be some very bad energy on this parochial rock. It's inhibiting and so very unhealthy.

We're a judgmental intolerant lot. We have our own ideas of what is acceptable. There are certain supermarkets which can do wonders for your street cred and others which are best left alone. We're not comfortable with obesity. We're not comfortable with dreadlocks, with people who smell differently to the way we do. And it has little to do with these people being illegal and not having a passport - it's about the myth of Maltese hospitality and friendliness being precisely that - a myth.

michelaspiteri@gmail.com