Arrival in Bogotá, Colombia

I arrived in Bogotá, Colombia to meet a woman that I do not know. She is the younger sister of my boyfriend ex-boyfriend friend. I was quite nervous to meet her. She was very warm, welcoming and a lot of fun to hang out with at the Bogotá airport. Her name is Laura. I arrived in Bogotá only to board another flight to Cartagena. Cartagena is where my boyfriend ex-boyfriend friend will meet us. Let me just refer to him as Juan.

So here is the short story on Juan. We dated for a while in 1999 and 2000. He started talking serious. I liked him so I went with the flow. The moment he started talking commitment he got scared as his situation in the USA was not so good as he was working a manual labor job while he held a Mechanical Engineering Degree from a great school in Colombia. For a while I tried to figure out what he was really trying to say and what he really wanted but as he himself didn’t really know it was not possible to try to read into what he was saying. As he was all “I don’t know if I ever want to have kids or get married” and I was of the standpoint that I know I want kids just not now I told him it would be better if we were just friends. I tried to explain that as I know I want kids and he dosen’t we will come to an impass eventually so lets just be friends. I can’t do things with out purpose. He did not agree. I understand why as he went from a guy getting affection to a guy not getting affection. He was totally ok with getting affection while he figured things out. I did not see the point. It was not fun for me as he was just always thinking about him and how it was so hard.

So we broke up and didn’t speak to each other for a while because he was mad at me. And because I did not drive to his house. I started to notice that I had been putting in a lot of effort to the relationship. I felt like a load had been taken off once we broke up. He missed the attention. It was wierd because I like him and being around him but I got sick of always making the effort; always going to his house and hanging out as his house or on his side of town etc etc. From this all I realized you should’t force relationships; romantic or just plutonic. They evolve as they evolve.

At some point he decided to return to Colombia. I don’t remember when exactly. He wanted to see me before he left the country but of course he wanted me to drive to his house and he called me an hour before he wanted to hang out. I already had plans and I figured if he really had wanted to see me he would have made plans with me sooner or offer to come and do what I was already planning on doing. So he returned to Colombia and we didn’t communicate and had not set up any plans to do so.

I don’t know who started emailing or iming first but we eventually started comunicating again. We started talking more frequently. We still liked each other. He missed me and wanted me to come visit. I ignored the fact that the reason we broke up was still there and relavent. I ignored the fact that as a boyfriend he was quite bad since he mad no effort. He was good about doing extravagent stuff and making a big deal out of a birthday but the day to day stuff he really sucked at. It is the day to day stuff that really matters and makes a relationship fun. So I decided to visit him in Colombia. I figured worse case scenario is that he is still the same guy and I will have gotten a neat trip to Colombia out of it. I was a little looking forward to the best case scenario that he would have changed and matured and figured out a way to be a better relationship partner.

It is probably a bad sign that his sister is meeting me at the Bogotá Airport instead of him. But he lives and works near Cartagena and his sister lives in Bogotá so logistically it makes sense. I guess we will see how it all unfolds. I will be en route to Cartagena very soon.