As I’ve talked about before in previous entries, the Panamanian’s innability to mingle with those outside of his circle is something that’s made my country’s society socially retarded, but I’d like to expand on the concept a little more. It’s been bothering me a lot, in the sense that before I would just discard the behavior into the “each to their own” file and stash it away, but it’s happened to me; it happened to me first-hand, wasn’t ready for it and suffered the consecuences because of it. I believe I’ve fallen into a “click” of my own.

I’m not surprised, really; once you’re in the town where everyone butters their bread on the lower side of the slice you’ll end up doing the same eventually and without even knowing it. It becomes so organic that you forget you didn’t even like bread before you got there. We Panamanians are very interesting creatures, and I’ll tell you why: sometimes I have trouble cataloguing the behavior, whether I could attribute it as pure homebrew stuff or things with a more universal theme… the Panamanian somehow treads the fine line between the two with uncanny precision. Case in point: women. The Panamanian male, it seems, is incapable of having fun if there aren’t women around. I’ve found myself (and I am also guilty of doing this on occassion) asking for man:woman ratios whenever I go out with the guys for a big bash wherever and let it be the defining factor of whether or not I should go out. Please not that I find myself beating my head by how ridiculous that last sentence sounds. All it makes me think is that I was losing my way… A typical conversation between two friends (guys) who want to go to a bar or a club or whatever with a big group would go something like this:

Friend A: Hey man.

Friend B: Sup.

F-A: Let’s go out tonight!

F-B: Sure. Where?

F-A: (insert club/bar of the moment and/or other awesome leisure activity here)

F-B: Sounds good. Which girls are coming?

F-A: Umm… I dunno.

F-B: We gotta call some girls, man. I don’t want to go to a sausage fest and play “swords.”

F-A: Well, Friend C said he’d call 4 girls he knows from the university and Friends D and E can bring their girlfriends.
F-B: Girlfriends?

F-A: They are girls.

F-B: Yeah, but it’s not the same… how many guys are we?

F-A: Counting you? Five.

F-B: And the girls? Confirmed girls.

F-A: Well, Friend D and Friend E’s girlfriends… so, umm… that would be two.

F-B: We gotta get more girls, man.

F-A: Why?

F-B: I told you man, I don’t want to go to another sausagefest. Let’s try to get some more girls and we’ll see what happens.

F-A: Sure. See ya.

F-B: Ttyl.

Since when do I have to bow down to a fucking ratio? I remember a time when I was more like my partner-in-crime Key-K, and somewhere in the shuffle I believe I lost my way. I see a lot of points in th fictional (yet close to the truth) conversation above that already piss me off: first of all, why so picky? And what’s wrong with Friend C or D’s girlfriends? They are your friends, and if the ladies want to dance, they will dance with whoever. Unless they’re serial killers, annoying or don’t want to talk to them for whatever ridiculous reason you came up with one morning (more on this later) is of no consequence; looks to me that Friend B is looking for girls to butter up and hook up with. It doesn’t matter if they’re cool shit to hang out with or if they’re commited but friendly to everyone; only hot and single women need apply. Every other girl is not worth the attention of Friend B. It’s happened many-a-time before that I get grounded from doing something I really want to do because my friends bail out due to the simple fact that “there aren’t enough girls.” You know what? Fuck you and fuck the girls. I want the beach. I want a BBQ, I want to drink and I want to have a good time with my friends and I don’t need pussy to do so. My friends, be them men, women or animal. Fuck the ratio, too. The ratio is ridiculous. Read: WHO CARES HOW MANY GIRLS GO!? This shit’s childish and assinine. As soon as I became aware that this was a pressing problem I would purposedly trump whatever stuff my friends and I would be doing that night just to see their reactions and prove my point… and fair fucking enough, as soon as I mention that there aren’t any girls coming then I start getting the “I’m sleepy” and “I’m staying home” or the “I’ll call you later” excuses that have me rolling on the floor laughing out of the sheer anger this produces for me. It’s come to times that I’ve been blatantly told that they’re not getting out of the house because there aren’t any girls coming. What. The. Fuck, brother. Somehow it’s become a fact that I know a lot of women, and they’re all very good looking and awesome to hang out with as icing on the cake. I love all of them. But fuck, when you ask me to call ladies and pull them from whatever they’re doing just to hang out with guys who can only have real fun when they have girls in their click then I can’t really sell that well. And I know what you’re thinking. I’m adressing those pressing questions now.

So, why don’t they get their own girls? I don’t have the slightest idea. You’d think that if there’s such a pressing need to have a female presence in the click everyone would pull their own, just like they would pull their own share of the tab for when it’s time to go. But no. This is not the case. I understand that I will need a girl if I want to dance. And the Panamanian in me comes out when I say that I’d rather dance with a friend than a stranger, but that’s because I dance dirty. I’m like a wigger who thinks he’s in BET, but lots of Latino cinnamon sprinkled on it as to not look ridiculous. Women here are, just as most of the society here, socially retarded so when I start to bump and grind I’ll only get a swift discarding and that’ll be that. My girlfriends know what the fuck’s up and, as such, go with it and I love it. Now, if I want to dance, I’ll call a girlfriend up and dance. Whether I do it often or not is of no concecuence. Now, for some reason I have to summon 5 or 7 girls just so not only have a girl per guy but also make the ratio better for the guys by having more women? Do I look like a pimp to you? I’m not the one who won’t have an awesome time if there aren’t girls. And I suppose that’s because in our “click” it’s all guys and It’s gotten in people’s nerves… funny thing is, though, that whenever there’s an attempt to make a big group (keeping the ideal man:woman ratio, of course) at first it looks like this time’s finally gonna be the exception but then the Panamanian rule of averages comes into play, knocking down more than half the people that would originally go by the time you leave the house to go to the club or bar. It’s always like this. I don’t have a problem with it, but when you hear how there aren’t any girls then it’s a little discouraging. I usually tune out… I don’t have issues with that, but I guess I hit my boiling point when I found myself not having fun, wishing that this particular time we’d all just had stayed home. This is in regards to Saturday, a night I apparently came out of dissapointed and seriously upset, as you can tell from this writing.

I move around in lots of circles, and one of the thing’s I’ve subconsciously wanted to do for years was to blend them together; I’m always the happiest when I see friends from different circles having fun together… that means I can unify everyone into a happy circle of harmony and tolerance. Ahh!!! Tolerance. Panamanians find the silliest excuses to not like other people. It’s always sudden; one day the Panamanian wakes up and decides he doesn’t like Friend A or B for whatever reason he came up with that morning. For me, a very social person who likes to be surrounded by lots of people (and great people. I’ve been lucky in that regard) this poses a problem when Friend A has something against Friend B, so much so that it’s obvious enough to cause problems. I suppose it’s bound to happen sometime, but that’s when people work it out… instead, the Panamanian tends to let it linger and fuck it up for everyone else. I’m observant; I see what’s happening, and hope against hope that the parties involved in this Third-Grade cold shoulder war can work out their differences like adult and fuckin hug it out, but it seems to me that this is my inherent problem, one flaw that’s been milked out for years: my faith in people. I see the best in people, and always hope they can rise above it and make things better without intervention but more often than not, it never happens. This causes some conflict with me for several reasons: when Friend A and Friend B come to me individually to bitch about each other it puts me in a very weird place. When I laugh at them and them they’re acting like children they turn defensive for God knows what reason… so apparently it’s important enough to get a rise out of these people but not important enough to deal with it and resolve the issue? Oh yes, and others get caught in the crossfire. That’s very considerate, ladies and gents.

I have been told by some people that I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to them, but if you know me and have hung out with me before you’ve probably seen me in the same room with them and to this day you don’t know any better. Now, if I can do it, then why can’t you? I know people that annoy the hell out of me; those, I try to avoid and save myself the trouble… but once they try to become a defining factor on whether or not I’ll have fun or not then that’s when I call “bullshit.” Of course, this is more difficult when I’m with a click and I drag them out to see my other clicks. I keep being hopeful, I keep thinking they will co-exist with democracy but apparently the Panamanian can’t do that as long as they have an excuse not to, and they will do the most ridiculous things avoid and stall. I’ll put it in perspective: Imagine you walk into, say, a Karaoke bar where there’s not a lot of people and you see a group of friends there. You go over to say hi or whatever, but you notice that in the group there’s that exgirlfriend of yours that broke your heart, or you broke hers, who gives a shit, and automatically decide you can’t hang out in a group with that “annoying whore” so you sit on the other side of the bar with your beer in your hand. Alone. looking akward because you came, apparently for nothing. O.k? O.k. Now, that “you,” the one sitting alone on the other side of the bar while the other people there can obviously see you seem uncomfortable even though they’ve never met you… alright, multiply yourself by 5. Imagine a whole group, migrating. Because of one or two. So, what happens when that friend who wanted to hang out and doesn’t have any real problems with anyone doesn’t know what to do when he or she has 2 clicks to go to? Oh, but of course. Fuck him or her, because the majority wins. And the majority wants to take the girls, up their ratio and go where it’s “more fun” because the other group’s not there. Wow… what the hell was that?

I suppose this type of behavior falls under the picture I’ve painted regarding Panamanian men. Panamanian men and their never-ending pissing contests and Alpha-male inferiority complex. It’s a cultural problem, one that can be heal from the inside but it can’t be done when the inside keeps thinking about how many girls they an pull in so they can have a good time. This really, really rubs me the wrong way. The girls = fun mentality, the lack of tolerance, the childish “holier-than-thou” aggressions and specially how I let it rain on my parade whenever it happens in my clicks. What shoots me in the leg, I believe, is my faith in my friends. The faith I have that makes me believe they can get past all of it… and more than half the time they do, and that’s why I like them so much but then there are other times that I find me restraining myself from lashing out in situations where I’d otherwise whiplash fuckers for acting like idiots but I can’t because they’re my friends… and believe they know better, even when sometimes it seems they don’t.

Here’s some advice, whether I know you or not: if you have a problem with someone, then don’t put others in the middle. Think about the people you could be affecting with your behavior, for once. Fucking talk. Work it out. If not for yourselves, but for the people who feel dissappointed every time they see the animosity and can’t help but sigh. Also, fuck the opposite sex. Both literally (unless you’re gay. Then in that case shuffle the advice so that it applies to you) and and socially. When your fun depends on how much muff or cock (that you’re not going to fuck) you or your friends can rake in, then there’s a problem. If you want to see girls and talk to them and do whatever to them then there are many place in your vecinity (and enough places in Panama, I suppose) where you can go ahead and do it. For everything else, there will be friends who want to have a beer with you in peace. We’ll shoot the shit, check out the girls, trip out on the music and all. Good times.

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