From Thursday night till Monday I hosted Vivi, a 35 year old woman from Colombia through Couchsurfing. She was a pleasant stay and I'm generally enjoying hosting people. I write this entry to reflect upon the experiences.
I told my guest: "when I host men, the range of possible experience goes from amazing to quite bad. When I host women the range of experience goes from very good to ok. It's as if men had more variability in their personalities. Women tend to be more 'correct', men more authentic". But then I realized I would probably behave more "correct" being hosted by a woman, this effect could be not because of any inherent quality of genders, but because of the way we interact between each other.
My guest liked dancing, so I proposed to her to go to a reggaeton afternoon party at a club. I had been there before, alone, and I felt quite uncomfortable. With company it was a lot of fun, though I think she had a lot to do with it because she was very "interactive"—she sang, celebrated, encouraged and generally was very social while dancing. Though we danced sexy with each other, we kept a prudent distance. She has a boyfriend and made it clear that she was not interested in flings. I really appreciated this outing because I don't often dance with other people, and it gave me insight into what is "fun dancing" with a partner. I wish I knew more people with whom I could go out dancing.
I tried to give her a tour around my neighborhood, being downtown this ought to be easy, however I noticed I knew little else than the name of buildings and parks... Uh, this is the cathedral, all I know it's newer than most cathedrals and when you go inside it looks different. This is the royal palace, but the royal family doesn't live here...". I feel I ought to be better informed about my surroundings, I'm a naturally curious person and this blindsided me, how ignorant I am as to not be able to give an impromptu tour to a guest.
I'm finding it more comfortable to sleep on the couch and allowing my guests to take my room. Since I have to go to work in the morning, and I usually wake up before my guests. The bathroom is in the common area so taking the couch makes it easier for me to get ready for work without waking up my guests.