Last Tango in Buenos Aires

DNI

It's Friday and as I have done pretty much every Friday since I got Residencia in Argentina last May, I have promised myself that On Monday I Shall Go To The DNI Office.

After the nightmare that was aduana (customs) I have been in a solid state of resistance to taking on the idiotas who labour in Public 'Service' ever again. 'This is Argentina', people, mostly Argentinian tell me, 'You are in South America now'. As though this is some kind of legitimate excuse. Why then do they try to pretend it's Europe? Why are they now charging for everything as though it's Europe?

The DNI office opens at 6am and they have run out of turnos by about 6.03am. Those who do get one are waiting almost a year for their appointment - Unless they are willing to pay for one.

Last time I went to lunch with el Coronel at some incredibly swanky and expensive place on the Costanera Norte, I was bemoaning my two weeks of full time work to get 10 cartons of books through customs and he asked why hadn't I let him help me. He may be a respectable businessman now but old Coronels never die, they simply continue their corruption.  When I need my DNI, he told me, I should let him know, he would make one phone call and in half an hour it would be done. Oh it was tempting but I know there's no free lunch - especially when he's paying for lunch.

Last December - every Monday having passed me by with no DNI - I decided to try him out. I sent him an Email asking if he would make that call. He called - me - daily asking me to go to dinner. No dinner - No DNI. After a few weeks and safely back in England, I became so incensed I mailed him asking why he had offered if he wasn't planning to come through (Very politely of course - you don't want to mess with the Militario).Not so he said. It was because I went to England. And when he gets back from holidaying in Patagonia with his wife, we will go to dinner and discuss it.

More on Emotional Unavailability

'Usa Casco o te Quitamos la Moto' 

Use a Helmet or We Will Take Your Bike!!!!!

Seen on billboards around the city this threat made me really sad as another reason I first loved Buenos Aires turns into just another Orwellian nightmare. This time last year I would ride the lascivious night streets behind the Delivery Boy in a flowery dress and flip-flops. The side of my head against his as he explained every area of the City. Another of life's pleasures thwarted. It's strange because I had been under the deluded impression that my head belonged to me and if I wanted to risk breaking it open, the choice was mine.

I have been vacillating on recent posts. Using each one to try on a different attitude towards men and their emotional unavailability. As I have said, reading the psychs and internet gurus can make you schizo, worse because the fact of the matter is we simply don't understand each other when it comes to love. Men don't bother to understand. Not because they are rotten but because they are biologically programmed to hunt for sex and thanks to 'Girl Power and the Liberation Backlash' they not only now get pretty unlimited hot sex without marriage or risk of pregnancy, but women are also offering anal sex and girl-on-girl pleasure to prove themselves modern. (That should stick me right up there in Google searches!)

So we women keep reading the books telling us to 'cut him off' or 'act independent' when that is just another form of control. Disappointment such as heartbreak is just a form of not getting what you want. You know how it is when a man wants you. If he stops, no amount of explaining,cajoling or nagging will make him change. It seems women have been programmed to freak out when a man cools off whereas if we thought of ourselves as the calm, centred (earth) mothers we are programmed to be and continued with our lives, replying to him without rancour and with a touch of humour - He may just realise that life was better with us after all.

Emotionally Unavailable or Abusive?

I have recently been reading up from my extensive psychology library (imported at massive expense and emotional trauma in dealing with Argentine customs) and while I have no  intention of crossing into victim territory here, it is interesting how smoothly a transition can be made from scared/emotionally unavailable to abusive.

Emotionally Unavailable Men like the BD may be categorised as the strong,silent type or as Gaslighters who refuse to communicate honestly so that a woman is constantly destabilized and never has any idea where she stands in the relationship. Their icy coldness means that you are frequently pushed over the line so they can sit back and smirk at how 'Hysterical' you are being. They will usually keep complimenting you in order to keep you on the hook while throwing in a backhander to hurt you - but so calmly that if you respond, you are told to 'stop being crazy, it was a joke'. You just never know where you are and it's crazy-making.

I asked the BD (by text of course, the only way he is willing to communicate) whether there were many tourists in Salta at the moment. His response was 'si, y todos son de Palermo! Pero vos sos UNICA!'  A sweet sentiment you might think so why did it unnerve me?  Because he had once told me that all the Portenos are desperate for sex and go on holiday to get some. Because the implication that I am 'unique' implies that I am competing in some way with other women on his excursions. Or am I the paranoid one? - he would say so.

The problem is that Emotionally Unavailables are very seductive. It's all about the chase for them because the unavailability is related to narcissism. Therefore the hunted one is merely a reflection of their own ego- If he has a woman who is 'Unique' then by association he must be too. He spent massive effort seducing me. He cried real tears, he stormed out then begged me to let him come back, he needed me with him forever. After he had spent enough time convincing me of his 'genuine' feeling and the moment he sensed that I was on the hook, he dropped it.

What is the answer? There is no answer to how to handle these men. Someone bent on an emotional 'Hostile Takeover' is not going to be a decent businessman. I disagree with the relationship pundits who advise total communication cut though. If it has reached that point, they don't care anyway if you cut them off because they have already moved on to someone else. A casual but negative response (ie DO NOT agree to meet or anything else that they pressure you to do for them) is by far stronger. Because whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger and we as women need to learn to get through disappointing break-ups without allowing our fears to take root and sabotage the next time.

Love and the Emotionally Unavailable

It isn't easy trying to maintain a relationship with someone from a different culture. I once told the BD that I didn't think he would properly understand me until he was able to visit England. It's something he's dying to do but unlikely in any forseeable future for a forty-year-old man who has never been out of Argentina. He used to give one of the reasons for loving me as 'because you are English' - I think it has something to do with our rock music- So many men here are obsessed with English bands.

And English women are so independent. There are no rules for us. The suffragettes of a hundred years ago paved our path with their movement and we continue to live as we want, how we want,where we want. For men whose culture has taught them that all women are desperate to get married, the thinking is hard to assimilate. So they freak themselves out by promising too much never imagining that we don't even need  all those guarantees- We just need to be loved.

For all those men reading Mystery and the annihilation project, be officially advised by someone who knows - You don't need to pretend anything with a woman other than that you love her.

 

While I went to England to get the money for the project we had planned, the BD segued from undying amor to el desparecido overnight. Emotionally Unavailable, scared, push-me-pull-you, commitmentphobic, narcissistic, my friends say but the fact remains that my heart is trapped in Salta and I want it back. And what of our plans? Do I continue by myself being the independent English woman I am or do I make others? Ever since I travelled Peru in 04, I have wanted to live in the mountains under an Yves Klein sky. Buenos Aires is really wearing me down - the noise, the dirt, the non-functionality of it now coupled with the prices. All my life I've lived in big cities- London, New York, Buenos Aires  - Now I'm aching for some clean air and the open road across the Puna.

Why There Are no Berries in Argentina

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11910

This is a long and fascinating article on the history and the future of the recession not only in Argentina but in all of Latin America.

It shows how people are wrong to think that Argentina is insulated from the depression because there is little credit here. Looks like it's time to prepare for Armageddon and instruct families back home to save up for ransom demands. Not that I need to worry - Britain was close to declaring bankrupcy a couple of days ago.

Vino

I am going to copy TangoFuego here and use this blog as a handy memory aid rather than the thousands of scraps of paper I can never find when I need to refer.

SInce I have become so turned on to Torrontes varietal, I have been hitting a couple of the specialist merchants in BsAs (thanks Aerolineas Argentinas - 15 kilos - thats not even a make-up bag).

Nigel, the brill sommelier at 0800Vino gave me a Bodega called Crios which is amazing! Vines grown in Salta and bottled in Mendoza. After conflicting reports fromlocals,I asked him whether it was true that all the wine in Cafayate is mas o menos organic due to the fact that no pesticides are necessary at the high altitude. No - some do use pesticides. However, the Tacuil Bodega, beside the Colome vineyard employs a human pesticide. There is a little man who spends every night crawling between all the vines and removing every bug by hand. Now that's what I call medieval.

Arquetipo

Obama  is going to close down Guantanamo Bay and 'other' terrorist jails around the world.

Last night there was a wine tasting at 0800Vino where as usual, Nigel got out some really unusual Bodegas. I love how he delivers even just a couple of bottles.

Thinking about the male mind for the last month and having studied psychology, I have been researching a few of the 'relationship' websites to see whether the winds of opinion have changed in a post- 'The Rules' and a pre- 'He's Just Not That Into You (the movie) world. Dealing with the conflicted BD while reading the 'help and advice' on these sites, which all come with daily incites to buy very expensive CD assistance, I began to feel schizoid.

One site,written by a man, advises women constantly on how to 'behave' so that he won't get cold feet and abandon you. Comments seem to indicate that most women believe he is saying that 'it's all their fault'.  Although as the man says - it's us not the men that are reading the self-help stuff. The other site talks about 'emotionally unavailable men' as Assclowns and that we all need to institute a total blackout on communicating with them. I read one and I feel hopeful that I can fix things, I read the other and my guy becomes a psycho I never want to speak to  again.

How fixed are the archetypes in DSMIV? Is it possible to fix a person's entire attitude into a set of behaviours that will never change? Is there not the possibility in a human life to change and grow always?

Last night at 0800Vino,I met a man who told me about the 'annihalation' book written by someone called mystery. He had nothing but great things to say about the programme 'worked in understanding women'. I checked it out thinking maybe men were into fixing what seems to be a growing chasm between men and women being intimate after all. Inevitably,women at  the site were reduced to a sliding scale of how close they were to giving in to sex.

There's not just a credit crunch, there's a love crunch too!

Brave New World

Well we are all hoping it will  be with Obama in the White House. I lived in NY when Clinton was elected and there was the same optimism so forgive me if I'm jaded but the Corporations are not going to let some Leftie change the way things are done.

AS I continue to struggle through my personal crise d'existence right now, I am wondering how much longer it will be before I have to do my Last Tango in Buenos Aires. Is Argentina the only country in the world that isn't having a crisis economia- or thinks it isn't. Those of us living here who don't earn in US$ are suffering the inflation (and collapse of our currency) to the point of starvation. I am not the only person living on migas and they aren't getting any cheaper either.

I have just returned from six weeks in struggling Britain to a country where pretty much everything has gone up -again - about 20%. How long is it going to continue? The City is empty so everyone is still buggering off to Punta for the season - no crunching of credit here. My rent has gone up and it would now be cheaper for me to live in Brighton again so no Mardel for me. I worry about people like Christina who runs the laundromat - How does she buy food for her family when even I walk around the local supermarche and buy little that doesn't cost more than at Tesco.

In fact, I noticed that at Tesco there was a great deal of fresh produce, especially berries, imported from Argentina which never used to be the case. There was also a lot more Argentine wine - at high prices. Argentina is reliving its post-WWII glory days of being the world's vegetable patch. Don't they know that a country doesn't get rich exporting produce?

TRUTH

 

• Building expenses up 18%
• Electricity up 100-357% (Based on how much used)
• Medical expenses up 19% (Only Americans think medical insurance here is good value)
• Wine up 20%
• Tickets to Bomba da Tiempo up 277% (no more drumming away your troubles on a monday night)

Sometimes a number of experiences congregate in your life conspiring to make you notice a trend.

Recently I have become aware of the extent most people will go to in order to avoid seeing the truth. I am not talking about the truth as I see it, nor some obvious truth that only I am privy to. I am talking about the truth that the person in question is actively resisting. That is their own truth.

Last night, a friend told me as we passed a dirty, fat woman sleeping in a shop doorway in Recoleta, 'I am scared I will end up like that'. This despite the fact that she owns an apartment that is rented to foreigners and has just sold another and pocketed the dosh. Now she is terrified because the Government (not content with robbing the private pensions) are now talking about requiring their citizens to declare how much money they have stashed either overseas or in safety deposit boxes.There is some truth worth avoiding.

The point is, people are ruled by fear and the biggest for those attempting to hide reality, is fear of the truth. And the easiest way to escape from the truth is to project it onto others. This is why so many people live in the realm of good and bad. Belieiving themselves to be good and everything bad to be outside of them. Anyone who focuses on any other 'truth' is immediately villified and sent to the bad heap as well. There is no more 'The truth will make you stronger' or 'The unexamined life is not worth living', everyone has become the perfect narcissist.

So it extends to people who read a book or a newspaper column and badmouth the writer for her 'unbelievable character' or over-opinionated stance where more likely, they simply can't bear to see the situation as too close to their own. They will happily ascribe your relationship to the obsessive, committmentphobic heap, while their own is nothing but true love. They will rip you personally apart so as to discredit ideas that they find uncomfortable. We are all moving through life blinkered, as though living in The Matrix, our mantra is denial.

My exploration of Argentines and the relationships we have with them is based on my own experience but heavily backed up with all sorts of research and interviews. In writing candidly, hoping to inspire thought, I have exposed myself. But as French psychologist Marie-France Hirigoyen says in Stalking the Soul, 'When a candid person opens up to a suspicious one, the latter usually gains the upper hand'.

Single Girl (Again)

There's a strange kind of conflict inherent in relationships between 'Free World' Women and Argentine men. If every relationship has some level of domination - from the lover and the beloved to the victim and the abuser - how do we manage the balance of power between independent women and machos?

As we huffed along on the reformer at Pilates, Flor told me that the Macho problem is down to the over-domineering Mafia Mothers in Argentina and every man transfers his powerlessness across to dominating his woman. The Consejo Nacional de la Mujer advises that 1 in 3 women suffer domestic abuse in this country and 100 are murdered by their partners each year. There are even 24 special 'Women's Police Stations' set up across Buenos Aires Province to address the problem, each receiving around 500 complaints a month.

So what happens when a man who needs to be in control meets a woman who is used to being in control, at least of herself, and also has barely a tenth of her disposable income? Does he derive a deeper sense of power over her than he would in controlling someone weak like his wife? Or does he resort to silent childishness and exercise abuse by making her responsible for ever more compartments of his life - financial and sexual?

And what of the single women in Buenos Aires? Are we enjoying the sexual liberation that comes from having the financial power or are we still labouring along just trying to find a man to be happy (and equal) with?