If that's what friends are for ...

However hard we try not to fall in that trap, we all, some day or another, make the wrong decision when faced with certain burdens. Infallibility, like many other things, has not yet been mastered.

Deny it not; we all make mistakes. Some may be smaller than others, but they're mistakes nonetheless. 

Some people are prone to making more mistakes than others, which is why when they make the umpteenth one we'd still be there, ready to deal with the repercussions, to help out and, at times, to forgive. 

Certain mistakes, however, cannot be forgotten or put on the side. With the privilege of hindsight, one must look back and say "how on earth didn't I see that coming?"

People might have tried warning you. Particular situations should have served as eye-openers. Yet, sometimes you've just got to put your finger in the fire to really comprehend the fact that it hurts. 

To help us when all seems gloomy and to share the good moments in life with, we pick some friends along the way. Needless to say, we all try to be as picky, finicky and choosy as possible so as to sort out the sheep from the goat. Some are more lenient, whereas others go to great lengths to avoid having undesirable ones around them.

Once your selection process is over, you will have your group of friends. Indeed, you will have some things in common, and many more upon which you will have to discuss. Bicker perhaps. That's normal, isn't it? It makes one's friendship grow stronger and healthier. 

That's if you have the right sort of friends. It may well happen that you don't. If this is the case, you will hardly realise - and once you do, it'll be a tad too late. 

You will all have friends - or at least you will have had friends at some point in time. You will therefore know how these friendships work. Among friends you will say what you really think; you will vent; you will say things about other people... and so on, and so forth. It's a question of trust after all. 

There comes a day, then, when you'd be in an uncomfortable situation. Your friends might want to do something which doesn't really tickle your fancy, so you decide to give it a miss. Coincidentally, another group of friends that usually do their utmost to avoid mingling with you, would also be interested in doing the same thing your friends are up to, so your friends decide to join them. 

You won't mind, for at least you know that your friends managed to do what they wanted to do nevertheless. Then you realise, however, that those same friends are mingling a bit too much with those people that never wanted to blend with your circle of friends. 

Your other friends and you would be quite taken aback, especially because those friends would have always mocked the other group. Your circle of friends and that of the others are wholly different in practically anything you did. 

Then some of these friends simply decide to start going out with the other group. These will come across as people with a lack of principles and values; hypocrites who are ready to backstab you if for once you say no to them. So much so that the new group they found solace in won't even bother trusting them much - and nor will the friends of their friends. 

Some others will pick a girlfriend (with particular pasts, to worsen mattes) from that group and, well, these friends would have no other choice but to abandon their original friends and join the others, even if deep down they know they don't belong. These will play the pious; they will keep a low profile, but will eventually be so absorbed by their girlfriends that will no longer be able to see the woods for the trees and will have to attack their original flock because, well, they wouldn't exactly know why. 

Then there would be the last category of your friends. They decide to stay on your side because they think your group is said to have certain standards, and well, they want everyone else to think that they too have standards. Secretly, however, they would have also joined the other group of friends. These are the worst ones. They would be totally hooked and decide to help the other group look better in the eyes of the people, just in case they will have to make that final step: join the other group officially.

With such friends around you, you surely don't need to have any enemies to hinder your progress. 

Much to the PN's dismay, these sort of friends have plagued the party's quarters. Unfortunately, eradicating such a disease always proved to be an arduous task in past times. Banning the "the fiere" (three beasts) - Dante's words, not ours, lest the silly ones take it personally, was surely the first step. 

In fact, you can't help laughing when you see Cyrus Engerer, for example, ridiculing the PN on Facebook - often in Maltese, of course, lest the people he has to appeal to now think he's snobbish. It'w equally funny to see Robert Musumeci sticking up for Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. Oh well, they do say that birds of a feather... Franco Debono, of course, takes the biscuit - he's so openly shallow that he's become boring. Much like the Mugliet brat. 

Yes, we all make mistakes. The PN's was that of letting loonies contesting the election on their ticket. Looney Tunes would have been more appropriate.