I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships today, in the normal two people together way but in a variety of other exchanges too. If anything, these are some of the things that have changed the most for me while I’ve been abroad, or at least the way I think about them.
1. The juicy kind of relationships.
I haven’t had a serious relationship while I’ve been here. I think this is due to several factors such as circumstances, fear of compromising my life to stay here to be with someone, and my only partial ability to translate myself into Spanish. Unless someone is billingual, there is a fairly significant part of my self- expression that they wouldn’t be privy to, which for me would almost be tantamount to keeping a big secret from them. Of course now though, I feel like my “Spanish” personality is a big enough person to that someone who didn’t speak the language wouldn’t be able to know everything about me either. This may either be a problem or something that narrows the field later on.
Chileans are very funny about relationships. Some days, it seems like practically everyone is “going steady” aka “pololeando.” People see nothing wrong with asking you straight up if you have a boyfriend, in a way that I think would be considered too personal back home. And if you say, “No, I don’t have one” they’ll be like “Why not?!?!” as if it was purely a matter of personal choice rather than as I see it, a matter of chance. My host brother was really funny about it for a while- he kept joking that I obviously had a Chilean boyfriend because I had been going out to see a lot of grunge concerts by coincedence and this aspect of my personality probably seemed inconsistent with my home personality which is frankly pretty lame: I usually am either reading for school or knitting while watching TV.
Truth is, I just haven’t ever met anyone who was “the one,” even in a short term sort of way. Maybe I’m too picky or too shy or too nervous, but I like to think that its also a matter of high standards and unwillingness to settle. Usually, I’ll reply that I value my personal independence, which doesn’t always translate well. I told this to my host dad once, and he replied, quite rightly, that in the right kind of relationship you gain more from the other person than you lose in terms of independence. I guess what I had been trying to say was that I have no idea where in the world I will be in the next 5 years or so and I don’t want to have extra factors weighing me down in tough decisions I will have make. It’s difficult enough not to be able to see friends and family, but I can’t imagine how complicated decision making would be with an extra special person. Sometimes I’ll play the studious card too though, for instance the other day when I got asked the question by a 9 year old at my internship. I replied that I’m concentrating on studying for university right now. This is pretty much not true, if anything it might be nice to have a distraction from studying, but it seemed like a good role model type thing to say to a girl living in an area where few people go to college, there’s a lot of familiar violence and there are high rates of teen pregnancy.
So, I’m unapologetically single for the moment, as culturally inappropriate as this may be.
2. Daughter
If anything, I feel like I’ve gained another set of parents this semester, which is wonderful. As for my real parents, its been admittedly a bit challenging to keep up, especially the last few weeks. In a lot of ways though, I think sometimes that space is a wonderful thing in the parent child relationship. I appreciate my parents and (I think) get along with them much better now that we only live together a much shorter amount of time. When you aren’t in physical proximity, you have less time to remember the things that annoy you about the other person and more time to remember the things you love about them.
3. Friendships
Friendships here have been difficult to form for sure. For one thing, everyone lives so spread out across a giant city vs. living on a tiny campus, so that certainly changes things.
Secondly, as my friend Regina put it, would you honestly go out of your way to be friends with someone who speaks your language badly and isn’t going to be around for very long?
In many ways, what I have formed here have been more like acquaintances, hanging out with people here and there, just getting to know a little bit of what they are like and learning how to share yourself on a limited time basis. It’s a wonderful experience and I think it makes me want to be a friendlier person.
In terms of my friendships back at Tufts, I have admittedly been horribly at keeping up with people. But facebook really changes things and a gives you an (somewhat creepy) glimpse of everyone’s lives, even when you aren’t on hand to see people yourself. This is one thing that certainly feels like it is on hold, just waiting to be resumed.
4. Relationship to Nature
I’ve become a nature junkie while I’ve been here. Or at least, I’ve rediscovered this aspect of myself. For whatever reason, living in a city here sometimes makes me long for open fields and country roads and mountains in a way that I never felt when I was in Boston. I think this has to do with a bunch of factors, namely the tantalizing peeks of nature that are everywhere- the ever present Andes, luscious parks and now that everything is coming into full bloom, the gorgeous brightly colored flowers. Probably also the fact that Chile is an amazingly beautiful country and I want to explore every nook and cranny of it. But it’s definitely the sort of experience I now place high value on. Tomorrow, for instance, I am going to Cajon del Maipo, a river valley in the mountains, to hike. I have homework I could and probably should do, sure, but I’ll find a way to get everything done. When else am I going to hike in Chile?
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