Thanks, doods.
Fred, I get a kick out of imagining a fish-out-of-water American fumbling their way through the nuances of Argentinian culture and finding an ally with a French guy.
...
So while I still kinda hate them, I think the Good Lord knew what he was doing after all. Assholes give regular guys such as myself the chance to snag awesome women. Without assholes, maybe I and many others would be sitting around still single.
Your words are once again wise, MDT. I think you're much more than an average joe, fwiw, and your point is truly profound, and it leads me to expand my "Argentine welcome" story a bit, as I got huge leverage into acceptability there by virtue of an "asshole" who appeared on the scene, almost as if on cue.
This is a long story, so apologies for that in advance, but it requires some set up.
Okay - quick take. 1987. Me: I'm a decent looking guy but no heartthrob by any stretch, who drives a truck, has a mess of unruly hair, wears cutoffs, and thinks deep, naive thoughts about the world etc. Her: way out of my league, easily in the top 10% looks wise, as a foreign exchange student was voted the homecoming queen at her US high school in upstate NY (before she knew what homecoming or even american football was), very intelligent, quick with a laugh, kind and considerate, having just finished a BS in architecture at UT-A and working in a local arch firm, with a very protective family in Argentina who are still living in the 1950s when it comes to old world civility.
Amazingly, and I have no real explanation for this outside of dumb ass luck on my part, we become a couple and spend a lot of time together in Texas and then move to Virginia, and now it's 1989. Time to visit the family. Not engaged, yet.
December. She flies to Buenos Aires a few days ahead of me. Then I arrive, after having worked for days without sleep to finish term papers and final exams (grad sch). It's an all-night flight and I step bleary-eyed into a totally different world. They pick me up (my gf and mother) in a hired car and we go to her mother’s apartment. Right away I'm being escorted to a barber shop on the next block (BA is a dense city) to get cleaned up, and soon am sporting a new tie and blazer that was waiting for me and we go meet the Abuela for afternoon tea.
Abuela had a 40-year old parrot named Pepe, and he and I communicated well, but otherwise my paltry Spanish allowed me to understand only bits and pieces of 4-5 hours of this formal tea-time dialogue. One thing that was kind of interesting though was that when Abuela put the cloth napkins out for tea, she had one for each of us, and my gf and I were sitting next to each other, and she had our napkins sitting on top of one another. She had a sparkle in her eye.
Next day. A formal family dinner in the house of the aunt. My wife's uncle was the sole surviving heir of a famous general after whom many streets and towns in Argentina are named, and so I learned a lot about Argentine history, etc (via translation). At the dinner was my wife's cousin, Alex, who's about the same age and was also single (they were both upper 20s). There was always a bit of a rivalry between them, and little did anyone know, but Alex had an unknown boyfriend coming by to take her out after this dinner. So, we were past dessert and now sitting in the parlor with an after-dinner tea, and suddenly the doorbell rang.
At the door, a rough-looking fellow was standing there, asking to take Alex out, and he walked in and met everyone. He wore only a regular shirt and jeans (whereas the uncle and I both wore suits) and no one knew him. He was not very refined, was a mason with no college degree, and was a bit older. My gf and I were invited to join them, and so off we went, to a club and had beers, etc. It was actually an okay time – he wasn’t bad once you got to know him.
But, that was not how he was perceived back at the aunt’s house! After we left, the conversation was not about me, but about this guy (who was called "este tipo" and believe me you do not want to be called a "tipo" in Argentina). Who the hell was he? What is his background? Why was he so badly dressed? Did he have no respect? Were the three of us safe in going out with him? What was Alex thinking, etc. The whole thing was summarized this way by the Abuela (translated):
"This guy seems to me to be a vulture (“un buitre”, which sounds even worse in Spanish than vulture does in English), while Fred is a dove".
So, while I wouldn’t really call this guy an “asshole” per se, he kind of stumbled into the part. And I’m forever thankful.
You can just call me "la paloma" - lol
