Plan B = Burrito Day

There are a lot of beautiful things about Mexico.  Being late isn't one of them.  Being stood up isn't one of them.  It's just a small sacrifice for living in paradise...

I was having a discussion with my neighbor the other day and he's been here long enough to know better but I suspect he hasn't completely adjusted or fully understood the complexity of the Mexican disappearing act.  We got talking about how they don't answer their phones or text messages and he says perplexed, "When you send a text that says 'Hey, how are you doing, how was your day?', there should be an answer, shouldn't there?!"  The little wrinkle above his brow was furrowing.  He continued on, "And if you make plans with them, you need a Plan B all the time, which is so low."

So I ask him, "Why do you continue to date Mexicans when the experience can be so devastatingly painful and leave you feeling rejected all the time?"

He replies, “Because I’m in Mexico....and....um, there are a lot of them?!”  Hmmm....good, logical answer, but that would not be my reason.  I date them because they are the most passionate, loving and incredibly attentive individuals on the planet ~ the Mexican culture is a passionate one - definitely. They love hard, fight hard, work hard.  

Then he continues on, "When I meet up with a Mexican, now I set up a Plan B at my favourite routine places, and the last time I had a date they didn't show up but it was Burrito Day so I didn't mind!" 

Then I realized, no one had told him about the end of love in the City of Broken Hearts, or rather the lack of even the start of love here...or as my good friend expressed how her relationship unfolded here in Mexico: "I didn't fall in love, I fell into depression...when I have more fun with a guy in a wheelchair, you know there's a problem!"  It's sad to say this but nowadays we live in a disposable world even talking about interpersonal relationships.

There are many things I will never understand about Mexicans...why they blare the A/C in taxis and buses when it's rainy season and cold, why there are no sidewalks, why it takes them a year to pave the street over and over outside my apartment, why they don't answer their phones, why they can never be on time, why there are only 3 electrical plug-ins in my whole apartment and why they are not in a well-designed place, why they allow construction to go until 11pm at night and sometimes will start jackhammering at 2:30am, why they have roosters in the city, why they don't use their turning signals while driving, why they don't have seatbelts in the cars, why they don't have toilet seats, and then I wonder, could it be possible that they too are in Mexicomas?