Independent Perspective News

They stock their fridges with frozen products so they won't have to leave their apartment for quite a while, and they by videogames and books for the children not to get irritable. They turn off their mobile phones and connect the other one to the answering machine... These are only some of the tricks three million Italians are using to fool people around them: they tell their friends they're going on holidays but they actually stay home because they lack the money to do it. The data come from a report by the psychologists association "Help me" called "Mole holidays".

"The cause of this behavior adopted by so many Italians seems to be the economic crisis and a depression of their purchasing power, as opposed to a model that keep imposing the image of consume at any cost" said Massimo Cicogna, a psychoanthropologist and president of the Ipsa (International Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies) and a member of the association Help me. That seems to be the reason for so many tricks and lies that intend to keep friends and co-workers from learning the sad truth.

Imagination, besides, is limitless. They give their plants to their neighbors to water them and some even get an ultraviolet ray gadget to be tanned when they "come back". Others buy souvenirs from the places they are supposed to visit through the Internet. The report adds that 19 per cent of Italians is staying home this summer, although lack of money is not the reason in all the cases. Some singles have nobody to travel with. "Many relationships are very superficial", comments the psychologist. "When you look for somebody to go on a trip with, you can't find anybody".