Why Does Everyone Here Seem To Hate Buenos Aires So Much?

[Gringoboy]

Well said. And every time I return to Canada it is exactly those kinds of things that I appreciate the most... The quiet... The cleanliness... The EFFICIENCY... and the RESPECT... My god!!! The respect!!! but then a funny thing happens... After a couple weeks... I get a feeling... Like an itch that needs to be scratched... I go to incredible parties in Canada with my friends and they all have beautiful houses... Expensive cars... And all I want to do is come back here... The funny thing about all those amenities we miss so much..? Is that they trap us... If there is a single truth about living in Argentina... It is that it forces you to live simply...

I ride a bike... I don't even have a car... My couch is a freaking futon... A word I haven't even used since college... and the rest of my living room is basically lawn furniture... My Canadian friends and family would be mortified to see how I live... My Argentine friends don't even bat an eye. In a very strange and IRONIC turn... The very things that frustrate me living here are also the reasons I am here...

It is easy to become focused on 'stuff'... And in a very real way that same focus or drive has made North Americans so successful. The free market so strong. While there is no sense comparing the stability or safety or freedom of opportunity between the two cultures... I put the Argentine appreciation and enjoyment of life..? on par with anyone.

You hit the nail on the head Canuck.
Less stuff, less complications, in a manner of speaking.

 

[CanuckleHead]

So let me just say to Chicaargentina first of all thanks for still checking your thread and the replies after 15 or so pages... lol... But secondly... Don't take it personally. People are on here complaining PRECISELY because it is ex-pats who are listening... The community that sympathizes the most... Sometimes living here... the frustration can reach a point that I feel like I'm taking crazy pills... So quite often it is just nice to know that I'm not the only one..

For instance I can't complain to my Argentine friends... why it drives me nuts that the banks here just can't devise a system to fill the ATM's timely or properly because they don't understand why that would be an issue... and their blank stares confirm it... But fellow ex-pats??? They get it! They understand that I HATE being 40 minutes late for a dinner with friends because I had to hit 17 cajeros on the way... Just to find one that was operational or had money in it... And making them wait before they can order their food plays right into my over developed Canadian sense of GUILT... So I am already on edge before my night even begins! (see how I worked a complaint in there?)

SO yes some of these complaints may seem petty and ridiculous... but most are also things that we have taken for granted for as long as we can remember... And for us it's kind of like having to... suddenly think about breathing... You've just always done it. :lol:

I would bet that most of the people that are in here banging on Argentina daily are also 'out there'... at night... fernet in hand singing it's praises to anyone who will listen. I know I am.

 

[Julieta0317]

I agree with OP, I'm from originally from Argentina but now live in Texas (I' e been in US for 15 years). I'm considering moving ba k to Argentina but this forum makes it sound like BA has become hell on hearth

 

[sleslie23]

I agree with OP, I'm from originally from Argentina but now live in Texas (I' e been in US for 15 years). I'm considering moving ba k to Argentina but this forum makes it sound like BA has become hell on hearth

If you are accustomed to being able to buy whatever you want whenever you want and suck money out of the ATM with 0 inconvenience, then you will not like Argentina. If you will miss strip malls and driving around everywhere, then don't live in CABA, but you'll be right at home in Pilar (not the town, but the surrounding area).

 

[haskellbob]

In San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where I lived for a time, the expat website is called the SMA Civil List. They named it that, and had to start screening every entry, because people were so uncivil.

You can still find a good deal of snarkiness there, mascarading as practical suggestions, etc. etc.

I believe that expats (and I speak for myself on this) are often discontented people, square pegs who don't fit in the round holes they came from, who went somewhere hoping their personal problems would not follow them.

And, sure enough, after the love affair with paradise goes cold, there are the old problems. Damn! They did manage to follow me here!

You can use the problems they complain about in Buenos Aires as reflectors of their inner state.

I went through a negativity phase and got fed up and went to San Miguel de Allende in hopes of finding paradise.

I know now that, on Earth, Paradise doesn't exist.

And what I remember, what has stayed with me, about Buenos Aires, were some very positive things indeed. And my heart tells me I was wrong to leave. So I'm going back.

This time there will be no rose-colored glasses on my face (I hope) and I will take each day as another dose of reality, and regard my annoyances as material to work on in the alchemy of my gradual development. I am armed in advance against disillusionment, and even expect it. It is good to know I can get in a taxi anytime and engage in a conversation about that "país de mierda".

But I bet, if you press the matter further, you can find underneath all the complaining there is love. People vent their spleens because the ways things aren't perfect hurt them.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence! I do think it is, for me, important to take seriously the list of things that were touching and positive about BA and the fact that, with distance, the negative side has faded to insignificance.

 

[Matiasba]

In San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where I lived for a time, the expat website is called the SMA Civil List. They named it that, and had to start screening every entry, because people were so uncivil.

You can still find a good deal of snarkiness there, mascarading as practical suggestions, etc. etc.

I believe that expats (and I speak for myself on this) are often discontented people, square pegs who don't fit in the round holes they came from, who went somewhere hoping their personal problems would not follow them.

And, sure enough, after the love affair with paradise goes cold, there are the old problems. Damn! They did manage to follow me here!

You can use the problems they complain about in Buenos Aires as reflectors of their inner state.

I went through a negativity phase and got fed up and went to San Miguel de Allende in hopes of finding paradise.

I know now that, on Earth, Paradise doesn't exist.

And what I remember, what has stayed with me, about Buenos Aires, were some very positive things indeed. And my heart tells me I was wrong to leave. So I'm going back.

This time there will be no rose-colored glasses on my face (I hope) and I will take each day as another dose of reality, and regard my annoyances as material to work on in the alchemy of my gradual development. I am armed in advance against disillusionment, and even expect it. It is good to know I can get in a taxi anytime and engage in a conversation about that "país de mierda".

But I bet, if you press the matter further, you can find underneath all the complaining there is love. People vent their spleens because the ways things aren't perfect hurt them.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence! I do think it is, for me, important to take seriously the list of things that were touching and positive about BA and the fact that, with distance, the negative side has faded to insignificance.

I live in Mexico, and some things are better now than in BsAs, like infraestructure, people being more nice, etc, but I think Im returning, probably next week or the other, because BsAs is so more developed, so more mature as a society, with shorter distances within classes, a more opened society... and I also miss my extremely comfortable life there, nobody cant change that , I really am more comfortable there, in my house, living with ALMOST no problems, sleeping till I want, spending my time in the net. Really, I dont know what Im doing here, it seems destiny doesn t want me here, so lets go to my comfort zone. Time is on my side.

 

[Silvie]

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence!

You can say that again! I totally agree.

 

[mikic007]

It is like going to hospital and wonder, why everyone is ill... Every forum has few purposes, expat forums are dealing mostly with problems of expats. So, someone asks, reports or just wonder and if topic is about something, that majority find absurd, you will read complaints, with some solutions maybe. There are plenty of topics describing beautiful things about ba, but of course if you don't have nothing to add, there won't be discussion.

Some expat forums have way less complaining, because things there work, economy is stable and there isn't much to detest anyway. Problem of Argentina is, that is beautiful and rich country, with sad self-destructive society. It's hard to understand and harder to accept this fact, hence so much complaining...

People have different reasons to be here, and also possibilities. For some is not about green grass...

 

[Wryter47]

I missed the part about why this three-year-old series of posts has been
dragged up again. Nothing better to jabber about ?

 

[Girino]

I believe that expats (and I speak for myself on this) are often discontented people, square pegs who don't fit in the round holes they came from, who went somewhere hoping their personal problems would not follow them.

Caelum, non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.

[Oratium (Epistulae, I, 11 v.27)]