What on earth is going on? Whenever I’m out at weekends, I’m either bumping into ludicrous 10-year-old Lolitas or else into Mick Jagger-wannabe grandparents.

I am no prude but find myself shocked by the sight that greets me every time I happen to be in Paceville, Marsascala, Buġibba or Birżebbuġa in the evenings.

There are girls wearing micro dresses, probably snatched off the Barbie doll in their toy cupboard; and there are boys in tight vests and spiky hairstyles shouting in their smartphones (how can a child, I ask, afford a phone costing the equivalent of my month’s salary?).

What makes it more cringeworthy is the fact that most of them are barely into their teens yet. Surrounded by these short people pretending to be grown-ups, I get the nauseous feeling that I’m a giant in Smurfland – sans the innocence.

The problem is not just the attire. It’s the fact that these children – there’s no other way to call them – are oversexed. They trail the night towns with drinks in hand and with one thing on their mind: sex.

It’s not just the odd snog we’re talking about here – it’s the full works. Relatives of mine who live close to these entertainment places witness these children parading naked even at 8 p.m.; later in the night they have them romping on their front porches.

There’s no whiff of romance about the whole thing: no teenage crushes and no flutters of the heart if their hands accidentally brush. Instead, it’s about finding a doorstep, rolling down your pants, and doing it. Then the girl adjusts her bra while the boy pisses against the door jamb, or pukes.

I find all this atrociously sad. At 12, I was still playing with my Barbie dolls. Maybe I was naïve, but frankly I have no regrets: with a lifetime ahead of us of relationship quandaries, what’s the rush in bringing to an end the days of innocence?

It’s ironic that this generation of children is getting compulsory sex education at school. They should know better, than, say, we did. At convent school we were constantly being lectured about sex by women who had never had any.

And then, sex education was mostly based on being assured that the highest title a Catholic girl could ever aspire to was to be a virgin and martyr (cue stories about saints Joan Antide, Maria Goretti, Ursula et al. I’ll always remember St Catherine of Siena, who was in hospital tending poor lepers when a mystical vision of Christ so overwhelmed her that she drank the bowl of pus she was carrying.)

The nuns may have been nutty in their approach but we all picked up fast on leaving school; and we always knew the rules of public behaviour.

Which brings me to the other major predicament: people at the other end of the age scale seem to have problems with acting theirage too. The other weekend Iwas dragged to this outdoorentertainment establishment in the limits of Rabat. Its oriental-sounding name initially made me think of Persian carpets and chill-out music.

Of course, it turned out to be one of those ‘house’ or ‘techno’ music places (can never tell which is which). It’s not my kind of scene, but being in good company, I didn’t particularly mind. However, by 2 a.m. I was astounded by two things:

1) the average age of the clubbers was 50 plus;

2) the attire of the people there was the same as the 12-year-old children running about in Paceville. The 60-year-old women were wearing micro dresses – with the difference that they actually had some cleavage to parade; and the 60-year-old men wore tight tops with the difference that their paunch showed every time they punched the air and shouted to the tune of “You’re amazing!”. Amazing indeed, I thought.

I did my best to avoid eye contact with these gramps thrusting away to the beat of the music, faking it. There wasn’t an element of communal fun in the air, everyone had the glazed look of ‘I need to have sex, don’t care with whom’.

No wonder everyone was downing booze senselessly. And no wonder then that as I was driving home, I came across a couple of cars crashed in walls.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying once you hit 40 you should get your knitting needles out. Or that beyond 50 your cuddling days are over – far from it. I’m all for fighting for the right to party well into your 80s. But something is clearly amiss: we seem to be having an age-identity crisis. Whatever happened to knowing how young is too young and how old is too old, and simply act our age?

krischetcuti@gmail.com