Why Argentines don't look for new friends

[zaenden]

Cordoba and Mendoza in Argentina, for example, are smaller cities and much more casual and friendly than B.A. people are more relaxed and down to earth.
Argentinians have basically a sophisticated European culture and are not as casual as Latins in more tropical countries, in fact Argentinian men like to travel to Brazil to meet women for the same reason. If you speak Spanish, dress well, have manners and know people in Argentina and are introduced around you'll have fewer problems. What many young travelers do not realize is that Latins in general are far more formal than North Americans/Europeans, especially in the cities. If you arrive in Mexico City, Lima or Buenos Aires with dreadlocks, unshaven, a backpack best head on to the Beach or Mountain resorts or to the tourist destinations. Of course remember if you meet an Argentinian woman you'd best be in a nice hotel and figure in dinner and dancing etc. in your budget. PS Per capita Buenos Aires has the largest number of psychologists and psychiatrists of any city on earth..very cosmopolitan with large Italian, British, Jewish and German-Argentinian population, however for some reason, people who live here get very depressed.

 

[JoeBlow]

Cordoba and Mendoza in Argentina, for example, are smaller cities and much more casual and friendly than B.A. people are more relaxed and down to earth.
Argentinians have basically a sophisticated European culture and are not as casual as Latins in more tropical countries, in fact Argentinian men like to travel to Brazil to meet women for the same reason. If you speak Spanish, dress well, have manners and know people in Argentina and are introduced around you'll have fewer problems. What many young travelers do not realize is that Latins in general are far more formal than North Americans/Europeans, especially in the cities. If you arrive in Mexico City, Lima or Buenos Aires with dreadlocks, unshaven, a backpack best head on to the Beach or Mountain resorts or to the tourist destinations. Of course remember if you meet an Argentinian woman you'd best be in a nice hotel and figure in dinner and dancing etc. in your budget. PS Per capita Buenos Aires has the largest number of psychologists and psychiatrists of any city on earth..very cosmopolitan with large Italian, British, Jewish and German-Argentinian population, however for some reason, people who live here get very depressed.

I counted 7 clichés in this text; no small feat!

(The clichés, not the counting part)

 

[SaraSara]

It is true that middle/upper class Argentines put a lot of weight on dress and appearance. Same goes for people who cater to them. The better dressed people are, the more respect they get from people in general and shopkeepers in particular.

A wide-brimmed hat automatically catapults the wearer into the aristocrat category - even if it is a Dollar Store's cheap straw hat.

 

[Georginar]

NoPat

I'm Argentine also, lived in Michigan many years, an came back here after High School ... not to stay, but sadly I did.

I have the exact same problem you had here. I don't know if its because I went to school in a period of time when young people start having a lot of teenage issues, and start forming their own opinion about things in life, and because all my friends where Americans. But the truth is that I find it really hard to meet people here and start something close to what a friend becomes later.
Every time I talk to someone here about Europe and the US, they say that people there are "frios".
For example, they say that you can't go to a friend's home at 10 pm and just ring the bell for a coffe because they're already asleep, and they wont like that, so they compare that same behavior here and they say you can do that or even ask them to go out for a drink without calling first and your friend wont get mad.. because it's normal here....
Thats just an example of what they always complaint about people that are not in Latin america.
The other thing is that when you talk about americans (PLEASE don't take me wrong this is NOT my opinion, is the things I hear when ever this topic comes out in a reunion, actually I feel the opposite myself and end up getting mad ) the truth is that a lot of those ho express their opinion say they hate the way Americans live (in my opinion is envy) and that they don't like it that they com here to buy places in puerto madero and stuff like that, and obviously they don't like american politics towards other countries... this isn't something they're gonna tell you, and when ever I hear about it I HATE IT!
"Porteños" don't use to tell the truth about a lot of stuff, and this is one of the things they talk about with other porteños..
My opinion is that they should look at themselves, and see why argentina is the way it is, and that the people living in argentina helps it be this way, instead of criticizing other countries, the way they live and the people in it, because they're doing better... maybe you're the one thats wrong about something...
And it comes to the friendship issue again, if any of you think its hard to make "real" friends here, Im not saying that all the people is the way i described, but a lot do share this thoughts, and maybe they feel comfortable just getting along with someone that shares the same opinions.

I don't know, I'm trying to express an opinion and write some ideas that come to mind, I'm not English native speaker and I hope this doesn't offend anyone if I used some term that I might have not notice that could offend someone. If so, I apologize!!!

And go to the beginning NoPat, I'm an outsider too, the difference... I'm here still!!!

 

[qwerty]

The 10pm thing is just bogus, people who work go to bed then or watch a movie or something. Nobody wants to drop by her or his friend come by without a notice and even then it´s unlikely that you are really welcome

 

[cabrera]

The 10pm thing is just bogus, people who work go to bed then or watch a movie or something. Nobody wants to drop by her or his friend come by without a notice and even then it´s unlikely that you are really welcome

I visit people all the time past 10pm even 1am . You are bogus

 

[qwerty]

Not if they have to wake up between 6 and 7 to go work. But whatever makes you happy

 

[NoPat]

Well, since the debate is ongoing I might as well add a couple of more points about my own experience and point of view.

This issue is all about being a conformist or an outsider, and the -in my opinion- absence of a wide spectrum of possibilities in between the two extremes.

I didn't emigrate purely because of the friendship issue but it surely did help me in pushing me out. And the family issue goes hand-in-hand in my case because as I already wrote earlier, mine isn't the warm and "there for you" kind of family, and has never been, and it's got nothing to do with me or the way I am.

When your family isn't like The Waltons or Los Campanelli, when your school years haven't been great and for that reason you didn't keep friends from that time and hoped to move on, when you expected that college will be a fresh start and you find out at 20 or 23 years of age you feel too old already because everyone new you meet at that point already have "their friends" -from before- and hell will freeze over before you'll get the chance to join in at the same level and become part of one of those fortress-like groups, that's when you realise there's something to be angry about.

You have to adapt or leave, but what's tragic is that even those who desperately want to adapt and won't leave, still will never make it in the inner sanctum of those micro mafias and will stay outsiders because of prejudice, ignorance, herd mentality, cultural stereotypes, political assumptions, tribalism and what have you.

What really makes me very angry is the assumption that everybody has those strong ties, those "forever friends" like out of a Disney family movie. When I hear that there is a norm and that it's typically argentine to belong to that sort of fabric, that it's normal to have those formidable relationships and if you don't, it's your fault and you're the one to blame, it makes me furious.

Of course it will never be the case that it's a perverse society, that human nature is to blame. Typically it is people who have those strong ties and the people who belong to that sort of tightly-knitted clans who make assumptions about that being the norm, the typical argentine way, thus implying that whoever does not have it is lacking, not quite well put together, not altogether right, faulty, weird, etc. etc.

Anybody wants to talk about provincialism?

 

[AlexfromLA]

Anybody wants to talk about provincialism?

haha,

the funny thing is that is a term that always comes to mind when thinking about the average Argentinian mindset.

 

[Marisolsita]

I was talking to a colombian woman the other day and we had the same point of view on this. We are both having the same problem making female friends here. They don't seem to like the fact that you are a foreigner, they basically don't trust you at all. I did not have the same problem when I lived in Venezuela, for example. And she was telling me that in Colombia it's easier too. I believe her because I have several Colombian friends and they are very friendly. Now please don't take me wrong, all women I've met so far in BA have always been nice and polite, and I understand that every place is different and there are all kinds of people in the world. I'm just sharing what my experience has been so far in regards to making female friends here. I don't mean to offend or hurt anybody's feelings.