For the Record – Catch Me Outside

I need a Babel fish. IYKYK. But seriously, I could have used one tonight in my ear to translate what I heard as I heard it because I am almost 99% positive that my downstairs neighbor was flirting with me this evening.

How did this transpire? Well, somehow, thanks to my inability to not involve myself or volunteer for things, I have ended up on the new board of the neighborhood council that was just voted in. I showed up to the election meeting thinking I was just going to be casting my vote. Then when they were looking for nominations for new members, some of my neighbors talked me into stepping forward.

In my defense, I thought I was going to be running for the secretarial position against someone else. Not literally volunteering for the position. Next thing I know, they’re casting votes and practically unanimously the vote goes through for all the people who had stepped forward for the new board positions, including me. That’s what I get.

Every day that I am in Guatemala, my command of Spanish improves. As I would expect with the total immersion that comes with living as a local. Where I struggle sometimes is when people don’t enunciate, mumble, or their speech is almost entirely made up of slang and local jargon.

When that happens, I have to laser focus on what they’re saying, and try to infer what they’re talking about from the entirety of the conversations, their facial expressions, and general context clues. It is certainly forcing me to actively listen. It’s getting better, but it’s still challenging at times. I find myself very often smiling politely or making non-committal noises hoping to move the conversation along. I mean, it’s no secret at this point that I didn’t grow up around here. I’m okay with that. It’s not like I’m trying to hide it.

This fact often buys me grace from my neighbors when I ask them to repeat themselves or ask them what that means. Sometimes I have no choice because there’s so little extra information to work with. Especially if they’re expecting a response and I’m not going to get a chance to confer with the google translate app on my phone.

So today, as part of my new duties representing my fellow neighbors in my particular sector of the neighborhood, it was my responsibility to receive the latest petition drawn up by my neighbors, to then turn in to the neighborhood council president for action. As a result, I happened to be standing by my driveway holding the clipboard as neighbors came forward to sign the petition. And of course, the downstairs neighbor happened to be outside, so one of the other neighbors asked him if he was going to sign the petition.

Case in point, I have no hands free since I am holding the clipboard and papers for him as my neighbor signs the petition and he’s practically whispering he is talking so low. Which tells me he wasn’t trying to talk loud enough to be overheard by the local busy bodies who were already mingling around. I could barely make out what he said, but I’m pretty sure I got the gist.

Now, I am urgently drawing conclusions based on context clues, body language and tone of voice. Because despite my asking him to repeat himself since I was convinced I had heard him wrong, and unless I’ve lost my mind, he didn’t just repeat himself, but he doubled down on his phrasing.

Good grief.

He steps forward and as he is signing the petition he says to me: We don’t really get to see each other do we?

I was like, duh. I mean, he’s working everyday and leaves at the butt ass crack of dawn. I don’t tend to be out and about unless I am running errands, and it is unlikely I’ll run into him in the backyard or the driveway since I tend to leave him to it on the weekends when he is home. At least I thought that in my head, so I smiled politely as he continued to sign the petition (there were several boxes to fill and there was a duplicate copy). But he kept looking at me like he was expecting a different response so I said “Que?” to him? Hoping he’d repeat himself because now I’m doubting I heard him correctly.

So then he says: Is this the only way we get to see each other now?

Oh boy. Now I’m sure he didn’t mean that in a purely platonic way, at least not coupled with the little smirk he had on his face as he looked at me. Lord help me. Dude 🙄

Well, two can play at this game, and the fastest way to shut this conversation down was to agree with him. Because the reality is, he’s probably not going to catch me unless it’s in an official capacity. That’s just how this cookie crumbles.

No offense, but I do not find him attractive. I know what I like, and he isn’t it.

My delayed reaction to this whole interaction is disbelief. And I’m a little bit impressed with myself that I managed to catch it. I may have been slow on the take, totally on brand for me, but I got it. Which is a real step ahead for me. I am usually completely oblivious to it, or freak out to the point that I behave awkwardly during the interaction.

I will chalk this up as progress.