We each should go our separate ways

Te acompaño: I’ll accompany you.

Here is a test that will help you find out how Colombian are you.

Sceanario:
You and a friend arrive at a shopping mall. Both of you have to do some sort of tedious task. Pay a bill, go to the bank, go talk to an official about a complicated matter. It will take you each an hour to resolve your own issue. And the place that each of you have to go to are in opposite parts of the mall.

A) Do you decide to accompany your friend while they do their errand? With the expectation that they will do the same and accompany you to do yours.

B) Do you set up a time to meet in a central place after you both have done your errands?

If you chose A you are Colombian, if you choose B you are a big gringo.

As the big gringa of this blog let me tell you something there is nothing more that Colombian’s fear than loneliness. This fear manifests itself in all its’ forms, from the terror of being single, to the horror of living alone. I know of not one person who actually is plagued with having both horrible conditions of being single and living alone. Any desire to be by yourself is considered at best rude at worst pathologically strange. One more than one occasions my father and Doris have left town and left me alone. Everyone from family, friends, the cleaning lady and the building manager has worried about me becoming lonely. Seeing their departure as a respite of being constantly surrounded by people is not the right answer. Begging people to come over, accepting invitations to stay at their house, arranging nonstop social activities is normal. Now if you know me, you know how social I am. I love a good dinner party, a cocktail hour, a movie date, any excuse to be hangout and interact. Here I am a novice who insists in being in bed by 3am and does not want to party until the sun rises. A quirky girl who likes the idea of being in a quiet house reading all by herself! What a weird gringa.