In honor of Valentine’s Day (and its wonderfully appropriate alternative: Galentine’s day, brought to us by the comedic genius of Parks & Rec), I’d like to recap some of my horrifyingly hilarious experiences I’ve had in the Colombian dating arena.

Many times, I was thrust into this game unwitting or unwillingly. You’ll soon see how that is possible by the powers of machismo, though I assure you, it should come as no surprise.

In Colombia, I think it’s fair for me to say that dating culture, in general, is quite toxic. This is because of some harmful stereotypes-made-real and culturally-accepted norms, ranging from no-means-yes and yes-means-anything-goes and lying (both benevolently and not) in order to maintain a certain facade within the relationship (which does almost inevitably lead to straight up infidelity).

I know it’s been said, but this is, of course, anecdotal. There may be no studies relaying just why it is or the frequency at which these sorts of things happen. However, that doesn’t diminish the fact that they do happen, and mostly it’s because of the dominant machista culture. I’ll go in to what machismo is via examples throughout the post.

Most recently, I was invited to go swimming with a guy I barely knew. I met him while hanging out with a friend and her friends (and their friends) the night before. Bear in mind: I had expected us to go to the pool in a group, which seems safe, am I right? But his intentions weren’t completely unclear either. That morning, he had sent me several texts that read very…flirtatious. But that’s normal here. What Colombian doesn’t call most women “mi vida,” “bebe,” “mi amor,” “princesa,” etc.? You would be surprised. However, the excessive amounts of winking and suggestive-face emojis clearly gave him away.

Now, I really wanted to go swimming. Just keep that in mind. So I said yes, why not? I mean, worst case scenario, he’s just very awkward, right? I have to shun a few untoward remarks, maybe. No big deal.

Wrong. You see, when men like you here, they don’t care if you are as stiff as a corpse. They will touch YOU. Now doesn’t that just have the word RAPE spelled all over it in big crimson letters. Sometimes I forget this, and the shock is real.

As soon as I got in the cab when he pulled up at my house, he put his arm around me. Strike one. He started to caress my shoulder in this utterly cringe-inducing way as he spoke at length about things he assumed I knew nothing about and made general smalltalk. I tried to pretend not to notice, attempting to keep things light and friendly. He kept getting closer and closer to me. I could feel my skin crawling, that sensation you get when there are tons of invisible ants all over you.

By the time we got to the pool, he was trying to hold my hand, not letting me more than a few inches from him. We would talk and laugh or carry on (conversation in all its forms is my ultimate defense mechanism when I am really uncomfortable), and then he leaned in and without any sort of preamble (other than some sort of throw-away “sultry” – in his mind – phrasing) tried kissing me, which landed on my chin. This happened several times. When it happened, I went rigid. I told him I barely knew him, the physical contact is too intense, it’s making me uncomfortable – I mean how much clearer could I be?

He pretended to care, said it was no problem, insisted on asking if I was comfortable and having a good time. But as soon as I dropped my guard, the same awkward dance would begin again.

He would look for pretexts to touch me. In the pool, he tried to lift me up and carry me around. On the balcony looking over the city’s valley and surrounding mountain peaks, while I was trying to admire the view, he cornered me and blocked my line of vision. He recited poetry to me, sang at me, basically wrapped his legs around me at one point.

Need I go on? It was absolutely obnoxious. Then he had the nerve, after I told him more than once that none of that was cool, to ask me if I would be interested in going out with him some more. To which a cocked my head to the side and coyly responded, “Wait, what? Since when was this a date? I’m just barely getting to know you. And no, I would not be and am not interested in going out with anyone at the moment. No offense.”

Why do I feel the need to tack on the disclaimers? “No offense.” I suppose it’s hard to reject men flatly when you’re in a situation in which you are forced to be around them alone. It’s not that I felt physically threatened by him, but it’s just uncomfortable. My instincts to be polite often get me in trouble, and more so in situations like this. I imagine on some level it’s because women are trained to be polite above all else. Which in no way backfires, of course…

This phenomena of touching the other person whether they express that they want it or not and assuming that it is okay to press boundaries is all too common.

Even with my ex, there were times I did not want to be intimate, and to be frank, he would ignore just how rigid and indifferent my body language was, or that my words expressed that I felt. Somehow, all of this behavior gets written off as normal here. Which has led me to having to fight to express myself and then feel ignored or written off when I say, hey, stop, that’s not what I’m into.

If you are going to date a guy here, as with any cultural context, you must recognize that everyone is different. No two people are alike. This might maintain you with at least a little bit of hope and optimism. However, there are some broad norms that become patterns for some underlying reason. Most of what I’m describing here is do to machismo.

To give you a textbook definition, machismo is a strong or exaggerated sense of manliness; an assumptive attitude that virility, courage, strength, and entitlement to dominate are attributes or concomitants of masculinity. Are you seeing the assumptive patterns here?

Another example of how toxic dating culture can be here is the constant feeding of the male ego. I’ve now had several encounters with men who literally do not shut up about themselves. They will start asking you questions – only to cut you off before you’ve even completed a sentence.

It starts with them asking a million questions in order to seem like they are actually interested in you. Like, “So, tell me about yourself. What do you like? Where are you from? What’s your passion in life?”

Your mind begins to work over the slew of questions. You begin, “Well, I’m not sure where to begin. I’m really passionate about–”

“Oh, so did I tell you I just started working at this company blahblahblah.”

It really is that bad. And they expect you to just go along with it. And god forbid you interrupt them, because I have seen more than one guy get indignant or simply ignore everything I have said because, hold on, he didn’t finish.

Entitlement. When he cares, it matters. When you are interested, it’s up to him. And generally speaking, whenever a guy gets hit by the urge to mess around here, he expects his demands to be met. As illustrated with my ex as well as the guy I barely met, women are expected to just bend over and take it. Your refusal or disapproval is easily ignored. But don’t expect him to be around when you need or want something.

Which leads me to the next point: vanity. On one hand, it can be nice to date someone that cares about his appearance and actually wants to look good for you. But the dark side of that is the problematic behavior that concern can generate. It manifests itself in more than just an obsession for one’s physical appearance, but general appraisal of everything related to oneself. In a word: ego. I have seen how the image of a person can be set before the person themself. Sometimes it manifests itself in insisting that you only post pictures in which they look perfect. Other times, its demanding that you change your image in order to suit their whims. In all cases, it is exhausting and superficial.

Another common occurrence is texting in order to “manage” you and maintain your interest. “Que haces” is the most common and literally repetitive question. Sometimes I’ve been asked what I am doing with no more than a few minutes in between, as if there were literally nothing else to say or talk about. There is a sense of micromanaging as a means of control here. If you don’t respond, you obviously are devoting your time to someone else or something that *gasp* may be more important than your pretendiente!

Then there is planning. This spontaneously can pop up on the whim of your lover, and the proposal may be more of a pointed “we are going to do…” or “I want to do…” and less of a “hey, I was wondering if you would like to…”

As an American, I was used to the latter, more courteous manner of suggesting activities. Most Americans aren’t that forward when they are just getting to know each other, at least, not the crowd I tend to run with. I have never experimented with Tinder, but I did have my fair share of okcupid dates, and aside from a few cocky bastards, very rarely was a date demanded rather than suggested, without some caveat to make sure the other person feels comfortable even considering it a date. We Americans, in my experience, are less determined to put a label on our relationships too early in the game. In my opinion, it avoids conflict but can lead to confusion once someone inevitably catches feels and wants to know where they stand.

Speaking of being American, thanks to being the minority in the small coastal city I live in, I have been blessed with the experience of being exotified. If I was insensitive or indifferent at some point to the struggle of women of other ethnicities in the states, I can safely say that I do understand how it must feel to be reduced to a label, a stereotype, and fetishized for it – and it’s awful. It sucks. It really makes you hate everything associated with that label. The comments are cringe-worthy. The “be my sexy English teacher” and “let me teach you how to dance” and “all gringas are easy” are a broken record that drives you madder and madder everytime it enters conversation – and believe me, if you meet a guy here and you are American, it will. I don’t think I will ever date anyone again that clearly had some romanticized or crude American-Pie-fueled image of me again.

But going back to Colombian culture, dating is a clearly established game. However, the rules are generally “don’t ask, don’t tell” when it comes to the sort of transparency that tells you if other people are in the picture or not. Exclusivity, I have realized, is not as much as a given as the fact that if you accept an invitation to go on a date, in the guy’s mind you are probably “dating” unless he says otherwise. Even if he’s also seeing several girls on the side. Or one “officially.”

I have still yet to meet a man here that will straight up tell me if he has a girlfriend when he expresses interest in me. Even if I meet him with another girl that is clearly somehow sentimentally or physically involved with him, there is often a lie, either implicit or explicit: no, it’s nothing serious, I’m into you. 

I’m starting to develop a sixth sense for this shadiness. Now I won’t take a guy as seriously and will most likely just walk away if he even suggests having something serious too quickly, assuming that he has a girlfriend. This is because I have been led on or straight up duped into thinking a guy was single only to be told by others or find out clandestinely that there was another woman in the picture the whole time. For me, as someone that as a rule would never go for a guy that is committed to someone else, that is absolutely devastating.

Returning to the theme of machismo, I’ve realized that there is an implicit cultural acceptance for infidelity if the man is doing the cheating. It shows his “swagger”, his prowess, his…insecurity. I think the root is insecurity and the lack of genuine relationships. Because these same people that tend to be unfaithful and dishonest about it also assume and go nuts over the idea that their partner could do the same to them.

Once, I realized a guy was acting rather cold with me after showing so much interest every time we saw each other. I thought maybe I was overthinking it or projecting, but it came back to me that he actually lived with someone and was in a committed relationship. This never came up in any of our conversations. The only tip was the cold manner in which he texted me and the spontaneous attention whenever we would see each other.

There’s a certain feedback loop of men doing what they want because they want it and not considering the consequences. I think this is a direct symptom of machismo, which is all about the ability of men to do just that in order to assert their manliness. However, if a woman does the same, I need not even go into the litany of insults that exist in Spanish to describe her.

Infidelity is a man’s game here. And a game it is. These days, I don’t date, and if I do in the future, it will be with utmost detachment and caution.

Obviously, I am just a cynic that has seen some of the worst in dating in Colombia. Perhaps I’ll write a post in which I contradict all of this because some beautiful person comes and sweeps me off my feet. I highly doubt it though, as a lot of this is less to do with my personal experience and more to do with the broad echoes of the dull roar of the antiquated conquista attitude that remains embedded in dating culture here today.

On that note, I wish you all a Happy Valentine’s (or Galentine’s) day! Love yourselves first – then and only then can you appreciate and recognize the genuine love of others.