Cling Much?

In light of my pledge not to seek out love interests, I'd like to relate some observations of Mexican women, within the realm of dating and romance.

Basically women here treat their men like old ladies trap their indoor cats... if they glimpse an open door or window they'll rush to slam it before we get a chance to even think of escape... which they fully expect us to do, (and besides that spoiling them rotten). The shut doors and windows in this case are usually called marriage and sometimes called dependency manipulation (includes pregnancy, finances, residence...) Many women feel this is the only way to secure their continued possession of their men... meanwhile they wonder when the other shoe will drop.

Not that they're unfounded in their assumptions... most mexican men do cheat on their girlfriends/wives... and often..., many men do disappear completely, and some will even keep a 2nd family on the side like an ace up their sleeve... so to a great extent they do need to be guarded and watched and shouldn't be trusted. I'm still not exactly sure what machismo signifies, but this is part of it I think.

But what I don't understand is if men here are such back-stabbing pigs, why do the women place such a high importance on pinning them down them in the first place? They veritably chase us down with butterfly nets, then once they have us in their grip, they'll keep us palmed like lightening bugs for fear someone will see their glowing treasure. Really, why the desperation? I guess it's mostly because in the standard household, girls are raised with the expectation that their role is to be a mother and wife and if they don't fulfill that purpose, they're perceived as failures by their family (and here keeping your family pleased is priority numero uno).

There's one girl that I tutor, a really sweet 25 year old, and all she cares about is getting married. She's dating this awful man because she thinks he'll be able to offer that to her. She told me how he treats her; he forbids her from smoking, visiting any men outside of work, he has to know where she is at all times and calls repeatedly to confirm her alibis, she has to cut her hair a certain way, she has to reveal intimate secrets of her previous relationships, etc, etc, etc, and then he has the gall to say that he won't buy her things or take her nice places because quote, "I'm not your husband," and if she fails to meet his demands he's threatened to flat-out leave her. Personally I think he's bluffing about leaving her, but none-the-less she complies with his routine interrogations and inspections to the point where she's constructed alternate versions of her life that conform to his "model," of how she should be. She still smokes, and still visits male friends and she goes to great lengths to cover these things up; writing down the previous answers that she had given him to maintain her continuity, hiding any evidence of smoking, asking people to lie for her, etc, etc... and why does she clutch and claw for his approval? because she has to get married. Guess how long they've been dating. Go on, guess.

One Month.
And he's probably cheating on her.

And it's not just her, many women feel that men will always be a hair trigger away from abandoning them. I've told G (on more than one occasion) how N has been helping me out with various things and she'll approvingly say, "oh... she's smaart!" implying that N has manipulated certain situations so that I will reliant on her even though we're no longer dating (which makes me wonder how "smart" G has been to her boyfriends...) I hope G doesn't think I've applied these same tactics to her to keep us attached, like for example that I live only a few blocks from her job, because that would be fucking scandalous. (oddly this is the 2nd time I've lived this close to an ex-girlfriend's job... strange, yet coincidental. Really I Swear!) I hate those games, love to me isn't Chess or Risk or Stratego, it is love, and the fact that this is an accepted, even expected way of maintaining relationships doesn't exactly make me crazy about seeking out a new one. In fact it makes me want to avoid the potential death grip of dating altogether right now... because if I do I'm fucking vulnerable to fall for it.

Have I mentioned that not one, not two, but every single American I've met that's living here is here because of a girl? And that every one of them (except me) is either married to or still dating that person? Yup. And the Canadians and Brits might come here single, but as soon as they're off the plane they get snatched up faster than a donut in a weight-loss clinic.

Not me, baby... you can look, you can touch, but don't you dare sink your teeth in.