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Virginia Ironside's Dilemmas

VIRGINIA'S ADVICE

THERE MAY be safety in numbers, but when you're the scapegoat - or even if you just imagine you are - numbers can pose the most frightful threat. I have seen normally sensitive people change into bullying monsters when they're with a gang - and I have heard myself suddenly squawk out cruelly amusing remarks, spoken slightly at the expense of a single member, when I'm in a group of people who are on my side. They may be remarks that, when said affectionately and teasingly, one to one, might not be so hurtful; said in a group, they can emerge like the sound of knives being sharpened for the slaughter of the innocent.

I wonder two things: first, is Bette an only child? Only children simply haven't been brought up to discover that the banter of a group is no more dangerous than the brotherly nipping and barking of a basket of puppies. To the only child, the merest scratch is something to be pondered and agonised over for days. Was it her fault? Does it mean they hate her? Should she leave now, before she gets hurt some more?

The second thing I wonder is whether she went to boarding school. Again, it is only there that one can acquire the ability to take the rough with the smooth, without taking any offence.

As one who was an only child and who spent much of her life in a classroom with only four other people, I can tell Bette that I sympathise with her, however. The smooth I can take. The rough? No thank you. On a group holiday, I only have to be stuck in the back of the car for four trips running, and I start to imagine that there's a huge plot to stop me ever sitting in the front. We only have to take a picnic by the beach two days on the trot, when I want to go to a cheap trattoria in the square, and I become irrationally convinced that, behind my back, they are all groaning that, if only they hadn't invited me, how much jollier the holiday would have been.

I think that Bette should go on this holiday, since she's agreed to, but that if she hates it this time, she should never, ever go with a group again. But this summer, she could take a few precautions.

She could find a friend and form a tiny gang of two within the bigger gang. Someone to giggle with in the bedroom every night, over a last-minute glass of wine, can dispel all the terrors of the group.

Failing this, she could do what I sometimes do, barmy as it sounds. Before I go down to breakfast, I mentally cover myself in a protective cloak. Every time I go back to my room, I take it off and hang it up. Yes, if anyone saw me acting like Marcel Marceau, all by myself, carefully smoothing the folds of an imaginary cape before hanging it on an imaginary hanger in the cupboard, they would call in the men in white coats, but I have known it to help. Slightly.

But the best protection of all, perhaps, is to know that you are not alone. On a particularly stressful holiday, I later confided to one of the group how paranoid I had felt during the whole week - hated, ostracised and shunned. He seemed genuinely amazed. "You felt like that?" he exclaimed. "But you were the life and soul of the party. It was me they hated, surely?"

www.virginiaironside.org

READERS SAY

Do it your way

You are quite right to feel anxious. The words, "They always make me feel small and frightened", quite reasonably explain your reservations regarding this holiday, and you have a friend who has also noticed your past distress.

Who or what exactly makes you feel "small and frightened"? It is important that you answer this question so that you can do something to redress the balance. Become clear about your role and aims for this holiday. Make some decisions about what you would like to do that is different this time around. Factor in what you want and why you want it that way; what are your chances of achieving your aims?

You may not want to put up a fight to have things your own way, and yet remind yourself that it is your holiday! How important is it for you to achieve your aims in order for this holiday to be a success? The answers to questions like these will free you up to enjoy yourself regardless of what happens next. Your choices will become easy and you will have a greater sense of security about these choices, whether you end up going on the holiday or not.

MARY-ANN PEREIRA,

London

Sex mad in the sun

What is the risk of going on holiday with a group of friends whom you like individually? I suspect that it is that you are frightened that they will go sex mad in the sun. Many likeable people regard a holiday abroad to be a complete failure if they do not have sex with at least one stranger whom they will never see again. If you want to join in this activity, then go ahead and enjoy it if you can. Maybe the prospect of this going on in the group makes you very uncomfortable.

But if your anxiety is about food, money, drink or foreign languages, maybe these are problems that you will cope with better this year. And, who knows, the man of your dreams may be heading in the same direction.

AINSLIE WALTON

Aberdeen

You will survive

You came back from previous holidays with a group of friends merely "miserable", apparently without having taken an axe to any of them, nor having been dismembered yourself. Congratulations!

Go on holiday with your friends, but go your separate ways all day and meet only for supper when you can treat each other as respected strangers. Like Tupperware parties, and other people's children, group holidays can put too great a strain on the strongest of friendships.

CECILIA FERGUSON

Dundee

Just say no

I wonder why Bette agreed to the holiday in the first place, in view of her past experiences. To be able politely to say "no" is to be grown up. If she feels lonely, not quite fitting in when she is with a large group, she is not having fun. It's supposed to be a holiday. If deposit money isn't an issue, I strongly advise Bette to do something else.

MS FOUNTAIN

Chippenham, Wilts

NEXT WEEK'S DILEMMA

Dear Virginia

The son of a friend of mine has been working for me during the holidays - he's only 19 and needs money before he goes to university. There are so many odd jobs in the garden and around the house that he has been here for three weeks. But I've found things have gone missing. First, the remains of some paint I bought. Then a blowtorch. And now I can't find the wallpaper stripper. Should I confront him? Or tell his mother? I feel so upset, I can hardly sleep at night.

Yours sincerely, Clem

Anyone with advice quoted will be sent a gift box of Thorntons Continental chocolates. Send letters/dilemmas to me by Thursday at `The Independent', Independent House, 191 Marsh Wall, London E14 9RS, fax 020- 7005 2182; or e-mail dilemmas@ independent.co.uk with a postal address