My First Single Girlfriend in San Miguel de Allende!
I met my first single girlfriend at a
fundraiser for the animal shelter one Sunday afternoon. There she was, sitting
on a blanket in the garden with her English Sheep dog and her then husband. I
thought, "Wow, a Jayne Mansfield look alike," but what was she
thinking being with that guy? A few days later she stopped her car to offer me
a ride, and, of course, I accepted. I invited her into my house when we pulled
up, and we shared a wine and had a great chat. She was from California, tall,
blonde and reminded me of my best friend in high school in Florida. A beautiful
blonde, the guys all wanted to be my friend so I would introduce them to her. I
was the tall, skinny one with glasses who was a tomboy. She was curvy and feminine.
Years later I met her in Alaska of all places, and she was waiting tables at Denny’s. I kept wondering where I had
met this woman before, because at that time she was so fat she could hardly
walk and certainly not attractive. Then suddenly her voice made me remember her
from high school. I am still tall, skinny and wearing glasses and say that I
am a manly woman.
Later I ran into the woman with the English
Sheep dog crossing the Jardin. She
yelled out to me and I joined her. Her husband had just thrown her out in the
middle of the night with only 100 pesos, the clothes on her back and her Louis Vuitton purse. Which, to fast
forward, was her signature piece. One day she sat it on my floor and my Yougi
lifted his leg on it and she screamed so loud and danced around saying, “Oh my
Stars,” her signature line. We all laughed and told her it was plastic for
God’s sake and she should know better than to sit it on the floor around an
unneutered male.
She told me how another woman had taken her
under her wing and was teaching her to live on a budget, how to shop at the
Tuesday market for designer clothing that was gently used or had “fallen off a
truck,” and where to buy the biggest and cheapest sandwich in town for lunch
and save half for dinner later. How this woman had found her a job taking care
of a woman with dementia and she was getting paid to live in this wonderful
house and care for this woman. When the bill came for her soda water, she took
out her VIP card which gives you a 10% discount for being a local. I picked up
the check and told her to put the card away, or I would be embarrassed, and
paid for her soda.
She set out from that day forth to take me
under her wing and teach me how to be single. You may laugh at that. But it is
not easy being single and especially in an expat community. I have to say
that I failed her lessons. She was the biggest flirt, after one other friend we
all have, and we all loved to watch her work her charm. She made every man feel
like he was the only man in the room. She used the Dale Carnegie techniques to make him feel special. Listening and
asking questions. I remember one evening we were at Harry’s with several other girls. She invited three men to sit with
us. We continued to talk amongst ourselves. She suddenly said to us, “Girls,
there are men present. Pay attention to them.” Me, I am who I am, and if you
don’t like it, then leave. Isn’t conversation a two way street? Flirting seems
to be a lie to me, and these men did not seem to me worth listening to, so I
remarked, “Maybe to you, but I find my shower massage more interesting,” and
kept talking to my girlfriends.
She had a dresser full of Victoria Secret
undergarments from working at VS before moving to Mexico. She used to brag
about how she could wear a different set every day for a year. When she was in
the hospital, she asked me to go pick up some of her lingerie. I saw that it
was true and they were even color coded and folded like VS. I, the manly girl,
still wore old lady under pants, and she was always trying to get me to wear a
thong. I said if men think they are so sexy then they should wear them. But,
then one day as I was walking across the Jardin with a short flowing skirt, the
wind picked my skirt up and everyone saw my old lady underwear as I was fighting
to hold my skirt down and walk. She laughed so loudly at me and took me
shopping for my first thong.
I remember one afternoon, sitting at the El
Jardin café, she quizzed me. She asked which is better to date a man who is
widowed, divorced or never married. I replied I would think divorced as the
likelihood is he hates his ex-wife, if widowed even if he did hate her she is
suddenly a saint, and if he was never married, then he is probably selfish as
he is not used to sharing. She said she was dating at that moment one of each
at the same time, and she thought I was right. I could not imagine dating three
men at the same time. However, I am not one to be out done. So I proposed to
her and our other girlfriends a contest. We had one week to plan more than one
date in one day and evening. We could not ask a man out. They had to ask us and
they had to be local guys, not tourists. I won making four dates in one
day/evening: one for lunch, another for happy hour, another for dinner and the
last one for music later. I could have lost if someone had the same number and
a breakfast date. However, never again do I ever want to repeat that. I kept
forgetting what I said to whom at the end of the night my mind was spinning.
One night, coming home from happy hour at Berlin
with the girls, I was talking to three men on the telephone from Match.com who all lived in Texas and all
had the same name. We were getting ready to take a chick road trip to Texas and
setting up dates. I had a little too much Pinot Grigio in me, and all three kept
calling me on my Skype, Magic Jack and
Vonage. Each phone kept breaking up and they would try one of the other
numbers. Somehow, as each line broke up, they were all trying to call on all
three lines and getting a busy or no answer. I finally screwed up and continued
a conversation as if it was with the one that I just got finished talking to,
but it was not. The girls all came over and put sticky notes on my phones that
said, no dialing out or answering this phone when drunk. One laughed so hard
and could not imagine how I could have screwed up so badly. But it happened to
her a few weeks ago, so I got to laugh this time.
She had the reputation of being the "88
date" girl; I was the forty hour rule girl.” Everyone said that she had been on eighty
eight dates in less than a year. Actually it was more. But everyone wondered
how she could find that many dates in a town with a ratio of twenty women to every one man. Well, it is not hard when you subtract the women with
walkers, the catholic school girls and the lesbians.
She would tell me and the other girls each
night how to dress and what to wear. Mostly, we had to wear black cocktail
dresses. I remember years later when she was married and looking at our photos
on my computer. She wondered why were we always wearing black. It is funny how
you forget. She was on a date with someone else when she met her present
husband. She was just turning fifty and decided she was finished being single.
It was timing for him, to catch the best looking woman in town. I have never
been jealous in my life and wish everyone happiness. But when she got married I
felt abandoned and lost, and he and I did not get along. Now we do, and I am
thankful that he makes her happy.
There were other apartments in the house that
she was care- taking
in. There was this woman who lived in one who was moving back to the U.S. She
had met a guy on either Chemistry or
Harmony and they were going to get married. We were discussing it and what
we were going to do later. We agreed we would go home and join this dating site
and meet up later at Romano’s for
Happy Hour. We both showed up with a forlorn look on our faces, and I said to
her, “You were refused as well, weren’t you?” She said, “Yes, and put her hands
to her face, saying oh my stars, can you believe it?” The application was three
hours long and neither she nor I answered gray, we answered black or white. The
questions are to be answered as an example of 1 to 10 what would you do if? We
both were 1 or 10 on each question. We both got a refusal email saying we were
not, in all of their years of experience, match-able.
We decided at that moment that we would make
our own singles site, and the focus would be to bring men to Mexico for tourism
and to move here, to change the odds in our favor, and to do events and fun
things monthly to get locals together who were single. Well, it is a work in
progress since when she got married her interest was no longer there.
As for me, I did bring some men down to meet
women in Mexico and matched up some locals and did several events. Today the odds are seven women to every
one man, maybe due to my efforts. Also I joined
many different singles sites:
POF.com
Match.com
Perfectmatch.com
Harmony.com
USCupid.com
Tagged.com
And other sites that matched tall people or
seniors.
Travel Agency in San Miguel de
Allende:
http://www.viajessanmiguel.com/
Berlin & Harry’s (now Hank’s) can be found on Facebook.
Web site with information on San Miguel:
VIP Club card:
www.vipsanmiguel.com
Chapter 18
