The update to A beautiful connection.

On Wednesday I met Sandia in the Retiro park before attending the Internations event. She was with two friends whom she had met years ago in China. She introduced me to them and we said goodbye, as they wouldn't be staying for the event.

At the event we were greeted at the entrance by a talkative German guy, a co-host of the event. He was unpleasant, the kind of person who speaks too close to your face and riles on and on about whatever is on his mind. He expressed some mildly inappropriate stuff (commenting on the "quality of ladies" that came to this event vs others), which I wouldn't have mind much if I hadn't overheard him later telling Sandia that sometimes men came looking for hookups when it was obvious he was one of them.

After expressing that we wished to get a drink, he held us up with another ten minutes of monologue until I interrupted him saying "OK we'll get a drink now see you later". Now that I look back at the event I think he may have been on cocaine.

After getting our drink Sandia said to me "Ok, we're here to practice social skills, we should introduce ourselves into a group. Do you want to do it first or it should be me?". "Oh you'll have it smooth and it's me who needs this, so I should go first" I said. "Great, which group do you choose?" she said. I looked around for a challenge appropriate to my anxiety. I saw two dudes sitting at a table who had arrived just behind us. Perfect low stakes approach, so I went ahead with Sandia behind me.

I introduced myself with a handshake, then I introduced Sandia. Turns out one of them was Mexican, the other Italian, and they were a married gay couple. They were really pleasant people, perhaps too much because we spent most of the night talking with them. Later on we ran into more people, but this flowed naturally, there was no walking up and introducing myself anymore.

I thought being with a beautiful woman would make things easier but in practice I couldn't notice a difference. What happened that night could have happened without her being there. My imagination led me to believe we would be approached by a bunch of men wanting to meet her and I would have to entertain a bunch of drones who came to speak with me with the intention of speaking to her, but that didn't happen. Everything was quite "normal" so to speak.

On our way back home we shared a part of the subway ride. We reflected on what we could have done better: introducing ourselves to more people, know what to say when wanting to finish a conversation. I don't remember how we came to this part of the conversation but it really struck me, she said something like "it's difficult for me to make friends, because women tend to hate me and men just want to hook up", and it really struck me because I could understand why. Despite me repeating myself that she's just friendly my mind is constantly questioning this narrative and wanting to find an opening into her ~legs~ heart.

It's strange how we think we're better than "those guys who come to events looking for hookups" when I would not have come to this event have not it been for Sandia. Hypocrites, that's what we all are!