Are You the Leader of the Expats? Part 1

By Rease Kirchner

When I was living as an expat in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I was fairly involved with the large but “small world” style expat community. I’m a super organized person and I speak Spanish, a combination that lead me to organizing bi-weekly meetups for expats. It was cool to be a part of the community in such a large way (no meet-ups without that hyper-organized weirdo, right?) and I really enjoyed it. I met a lot of cool people, but of course, I also had a lot of hilarious encounters as well. I never wrote about them in fear that the expats would share the articles and then avoid me so they wouldn’t end up in one of my trademark brutal posts (See: Dating in Buenos Aires series).

However, I moved back to the US recently, so I can now share with you my some of favourites.

Are you the leader of the expats?

I was sitting alone at a table set for 30. I had arrived early for the dinner I had arranged, so I was just reading a book and waiting for people to show up. A man shuffled up to me, rather awkwardly and asked “are you the leader of the expats?”

Sitting at a large table as this much older, nervous man stood in front of me looking like he was considering bowing or something, I was oh-so-tempted to go Ron Burgundy on him and say “Yes well, people know me.” Instead I smiled and said “Yeah, um, something like that.” The thing about the expat community is that it was so tight-knit that people truly did know me, and I mean that in the humblest way possible. Again, I’m that weird organized girl, remember? I would hardly say I could lead my people into battle or even get them to take off their pants for me on command like Ron Burgundy. Well, maybe some of them…

Your ass looks fine to me

After the dinners, I usually herded the younger/unmarried expats like cattle through the streets so we could get to a bar. I was chatting with a guy who was probably around 40 (and I mean chatting in the most platonic way possible) and he complimented my shoes. I laughed and said “Oh, thanks. I’m not very fashionable. My mom bought these for me. She sends me clothes from the states because my ass is too big to fit into tiny Argentine pants.” This man then took me by the shoulders, spun me around, took a nice long look at my backside and said “looks fine to me!” I resisted the urge to vomit and excused myself as soon as I could.

Facepalm. Seriously.

I’m kind of a big deal on the forum

At another meet-up, an older man approached me and introduced himself. After telling me his name, he added “I’m kind of a big deal on the forum, I’ve got thousands of posts.” I stared at him in disbelief, wondering how to react to such as statement. I knew he was referring to a popular expat online forum, but I could not for the life of me understand why he believed having thousands of posts on a forum made him a big deal. What did he expect me to say? “Yeah, I’m a total n00b. You’re basically the master of the forum. Mad props, bro, mad props.” He introduced himself to other people in this same manner throughout the night. This man was damn proud of his online activity and also his nice apartment. I’m sure if I had listened to him babble any longer he would have told me he had many leather bound books as well.

Stay tuned for Part Two of Are You the Leader of the Expats? More strange characters to come.