Thar's gold in them thar gringos!

There are some who just want to get whatever they can out of you while they have the chance...they don’t want money. They want your money! (American resident speaking of Argentinos in willbonner's blog)

After my thieving paramour vanished with the camcorder, I spent days mostly holed up in my apartment examining my experiences and beliefs. I thought I was usually a pretty good judge of character but I obviously failed dramatically with Denis, so what went wrong? My best guess is the cultural differences mean I'm playing by a new set of rules in an unfamiliar game.

Americans tend to be fairly open and trusting people who accept others pretty much at face value in social situations. When was the last time you met someone at a party and asked for his ID? Or insisted on going to your date's home so you could verify he actually lives at the address he gave you? We know people may embroider their reality a bit but we don't usually expect them to weave an entire web of lies for us.

I talked to the few Argentinos I can trust and they practically said they'd suspect their own grandmothers of being ready to commit larceny and fraud if the opportunity arose. There's a widespread attitude here of feeling that everyone is fair game. And gringos are the best game of all, because we have no clue how the game is played here.

Almost every person whom I've met more than once has hit me up for money, sooner or later, usually in the form of a request for a short-term loan. It's so common that I think Argentinos meet me and see a potential ATM machine rather than a person. On a few occasions, I did indeed acquiesce to small amounts (US $10-25), more as a learning experiment than from a genuine belief that I would ever be repaid. One is paying me back in services (he cuts hair); the rest have all vanished. It seems to be a pattern here, get what you can and then get out.

Having experienced this chicanery as well as my romance-turned-robbery, I'm working on developing new social skills. I can't judge people here by the standards I'm accustomed to, the cultural gap is too great. I need to learn how Argentinos do it, how they ascertain the trustworthiness of new acquaintances. I think it will be a long process and I will probably have more misadventures along the way.