Sunday 31 May 2009

Paceville and the Quest for a Romantic Partner

When talking about Malta, many young foreigners would surely know about Paceville. The latter represents the island's clubbing capital and it attracts thousands of people every weekend.

In this post, I do not wish to analyse the virtues and vices that are frequently associated with Paceville. I prefer to focus on the popular belief that Paceville is the perfect place for a single person to find a romantic partner.

During my late teens, whilst complaining about being single, many people encouraged me to go to Paceville during the week and, particularly, on Saturday nights. I followed this advice for a number of months. Result? I remained single throughout the entire period when I used to stay out at Paceville until 6am.

Of course, there could have been many reasons underlying the lack of success in finding a partner during my frequent visits to Paceville. My appearance during those times could have benefited from certain changes, but I still believe that there were other issues to take into consideration. More important issues.

To this day, I believe that Malta is a country of clans or tribes. The clans tend to develop in many ways; sometimes they are formed by individuals who had attended a particular school for several years, people who had worked together, people who believed in the same religion, etc. As a member of a clan, it becomes relatively easy to be introduced to potential romantic partners, to individuals who could offer one a decent job, to a network of friends.

In my case, I was not very comfortable with the notion of being a part of a group for a fairly long time. I stayed away from the many religious groups that exist in Malta since I did not want to be a hypocrite; as an atheist, I did not want to go singing religious hymns just to make friends or to find a girlfriend.

Since I did not belong to any specific clan, whenever I went to Paceville, I often felt as though I were a total stranger. I would see pretty girls all over the place, but they were virtually never on their own; they tended to be with many other people.

Furthermore, the noise level inside most clubs in Paceville was so loud that it was quite hard to imagine myself trying to strike a conversation with a girl that captured my attention. Such loud music makes it possible to flirt using body language, but there is little more that one could do in similar circumstances.

Since those days, the Internet has become an extremely popular tool. With the appearance of social networking sites such as Badoo and Facebook, an increasing number of individuals have made friends and even started romantic relationships via the Internet. The latter has certainly helped several people in Malta who did not belong to a specific clan. More specifically, the Internet contains countless groups that allow easy membership and contact with other people. Such access to one or more groups is not always so easy when analysing, say, a group of individuals in Paceville.

To conclude, I am glad that - in a very small country like Malta - the Internet has provided another way to make friends and to meet a romantic partner. :)

2 comments:

w said...

Very true. I have no idea how people can have the notion that in order to find a partner you need to go to Paceville.

For the reasons stated in your blog I can't understand how someone can meet a potential partner in PV.

Several young people have told me that PV is not the place to find a partner (you can't talk, the music is too loud, the groups thing, etc) but only for a one night stand for instance.

Many people I have talked to recently have found a partner through Facebook and as I have said several times, most of my/our friends/acquientances we have met solely thanks to the internet!

Of course, building up a relationship takes time and as any other relationship it needs to be nurtured but the way it was discovered in the first place is more often than not the internet. It is not only the future anymore, it is the present.

Ohniex4u said...

hehe I barely know anyone who met a romantic partner from paceville.

in my opinion, paceville is the place of hook ups, find someone, most probably intoxicated, and spend hours snogging in some dark corner.

I go to paceville frequently, not as frequent as most of the teens here in malta, but I go there more than the average joe does. usually with a particular group, from school or work or something like that.

sometimes you can make new friends at paceville, for example, I happen to meet someone I know and he/she introduces me to his/her group. although up to that point you're really no friends at all, I barely remember the name of them a few minutes after (well except maybe for some girl I happen to like), but if you stumble upon them again, say on a bus trip, or something like that, you can easily start talking. like "oh you're the guy i met last time!" and it continues from there.

for me, relationships don't happen at paceville. they happen somewhere you frequently spend time at. for example, school, or work. that way, you are "forced" to spend time together and get to know each other.

oh and another thing.. 3/4s of the girls at paceville I wouldn't be interested in. ok they're good eye candy, but I wouldn't want to have a romantic relationship with such girls. if you used to spend till 6am in the morning, then I don't need to describe what kind of girls I'm talking about, because I'm sure you used to see lots.