One phenomenon that Pablo had commented on is how limited the life experience of many colombianas is-- it's not uncommon to meet women who have never been outside their city, never been on an airplane, etc. Cristina said she had never had Italian food. In Medellín, the restaurant you go to if you really want to impress your date is the revolving Tony Roma's on top of the Dann Carlton Hotel. I thought it would be far better, though, to go to Fatto in Casa and let her first experience of Italian food be a home run. When I got in touch with her, she sounded like she wanted to go, but then when the time came she was busy, it was too late, yada yada, and it appeared that she had lost interest in me; her two days off from work and school had mostly passed by this time, and we hadn't seen each other. I commented about this in an email to don Pablo, and he urged me to stay on it, that paisas like to be pursued a bit. That seemed counterintuitive to me; if a Latina is into you, she's into you, and will make the time to be with you. And if she knows you're in town for a limited time she'll be eager to spend as much time as possible with you and "stake her claim" before someone else does. By this time I had bought a pre-paid cell phone ($35) and it was easier to get ahold of her on hers. We called back and forth, and made tentative plans to do the Metro Cable, which is the local teleférico (gondola ride up into the foothills). I was supposed to call her at 1 p.m. the next day to set the exact time.
The next morning, I went out to see a couple of doctors, since it's much cheaper to do so in Colombia. The first was a urologist, who did an ultrasound prostate exam for about $50, since I'm approaching the age where I need to start paying attention to that sort of thing. Plumbing's fine, thanks for asking. Then I went to see a proctologist to take a look at my...just kidding. The second doctor was a dermatologist ($25), since my hair has been thinning out a bit. Turns out she lived in the States for a while and speaks very good English. She's the one who told me about the National Geographic hit piece, and described it as a dagger in the heart, just as they were living down Pablo Escobar. She recommended finasteride, and seemed very optimistic that it would work in my case. I had taken it for a while in Brazil, but she said you have to be very diligent about taking 1mg. every day, you have to wait six months to see results, and you have to keep taking it for as long as you want hair. So it looks like I'll be taking finasteride every morning for the rest of my life. I went ahead and bought a year's worth since it's available over the counter there, and there was a huge difference in price from one pharmacy to the next, Cp$100k vs. Cp$175k for a 30x5 box (it's far cheaper to buy 5mg pills and split them).
The receptionist seemed like a very nice young lady. The way someone sounds on the phone is a poor measure of how he is in person, but I noticed from the first phone contact that she seemed very dignified and polite, and she seemed that way in person as well. She was sort of average looking, but had a slim, attractive figure and an air of being a simple, unassuming person and was pleasant to talk to. She was twenty-two and planning to start university next year; she said she would have to pick a relatively easy major since she has to work full time, so I think she was from a fairly humble background. She also had never tried Italian food. I was scheduled to call Cristina as soon as my appointment was over, and decided that if she started vacillating again I would hang up, come back in, and ask the receptionist out instead. But when I called Cristina, she said she wanted to go, and we arranged to meet at the University Metro stop at 4.
I got out to the Metro stop at 3, wandered around a bit, realized I wasn't in Beverly Hills, wandered back closer to the Metro, and stopped to check email. At 4 p.m. sharp I was at the Metro stop. No sign of Cristina. At 4:10, my cell phone rang, and it was her: "Hi Ted, where were you? I was waiting and waiting, and got tired and left. Now I'm at the Alpujarra stop on my way home...". I suggested that we could still go, that it wouldn't be hard to meet up at Alpujarra, but she started to say, "Well, I'm already on my way home, it's far, blah, blah...". Despite rolling my eyes with disgust, I mustered my most cheerful voice and cut her of with, "OK...OK...OK...OK, bye (click)." Tired of playing Charlie Brown to her Lucy, I said, scruck her; I won't even answer the phone if she calls again. I stood around for a couple of minutes to ponder my next move, then decided I would go home and call the receptionist to ask her out.
When I got off the Metro at my stop, my cell phone rang, and it turned out to be Cristina, calling me from a friend's cell phone. She asked, "Why did you hang up on me?" Surrounded by traffic noise and not eager to talk to her, I asked her to call me at home in ten minutes. I went home, called back the dermatologist's office, and asked the receptionist out. She accepted, but for the next evening since it was late in the day, and gave me her home phone. During this conversation, I'm pretty sure I heard Pablo's call waiting function beep at me. I didn't answer.
About 8 p.m., I was getting dressed to go out, and the phone rang. It was Cristina, and I told her I couldn't talk because I was getting dressed to go out on a date [with myself]. She asked if it was with an amiga of Pablo's, and I said, no, an amiga of mine. Gotta go; call me tomorrow, but not before noon. Bye. She never called again, and I didn't care. I had already written her off, and figured I had nothing to lose by sending the message that she had something really good going but was screwing it up by being a flake. Her birthday is in a couple of months, so I'll probably surprise her with a phone call to wish her feliz cumpleaños, but for now está castigada.
I never connected with the receptionist, though I'll probably try again. She wasn't home yet when I called, and her younger brother took a message for me, but I had to tell him my cell number five or six times and he never did seem to get it right. She may not have had a cell phone to call me back on. I went by the clinic on another occasion, but didn't see her around. There are plenty of fish in the sea down there.
