My time in Buenos Aires in 2022 started a bit rough. I hadn’t found a good flat yet, didn’t have a circle of friends, and was still struggling with Covid trauma. But one day, I took a page from Dora’s Book of Life, and start assuming that everything will just magically be ok.

I then said yes right away to a short job opportunity that came my way.

And the next day, I saw an expat posting about ‘bouldering and beers,’ one hour after the event had begun. I didn’t care. I signed up and went. That event led to joining the Buenos Aires Foodies Group. This cascaded into a host of other events, social groups, fun discussions, sporting events, and great times.

At my first Foodies Group event, a Sunday brunch, I sat next to Charles. Charles was tall, with dark curly hair. Charles was cute. Charles smiled a lot. Valentina liked Charles.

We chatted for a bit. He and his buddies left early to hit the San Telmo market. No worries, though, thought Valentina, because Charles is also “way too young for Valentina”. (For the record, he is 11 years younger. Valentina is 15 years younger than Henry. Ahem.)

Weeks later, on one of my last days before leaving Buenos Aires (sad!), I had a super-fun packed day: waking up without a hangover despite the previous night’s till-4am-asado (!), a Foodies brunch with now-close friends, shopping with my Dutch diplomat friend, an hourlong walk with my Chicago friend, watching my first polo game, playing tag rugby for my first time with 25 expats, and finally, getting beers with all of the above people next to the hipodromo (Buenos Aires’ horse racing track). Seriously, a rare near-perfect day in my book!

At the polo game, we met my Chicago friend’s friend, his date, and eventually none other than … Charles. With his own date. I curiously inspected this date. Tall, voluptuous, long blonde hair, skimpily dressed at 3pm. This lowered my interest in him. Anyway, I was leaving the country soon. I left them watching the polo game and headed to rugby.

But after the rugby, everyone gathered at the hipodromo. Including Charles and his date. I was way too busy chatting with all the other expats. Eventually numbers dwindled, Charles’s date left, and Charles and I started chatting. We actually started having some nice, meaningful, deep conversations. Ok, several pluses for Charles. I shared my experiences with the 30d30d challenge, and my usual outcomes of not wanting a second date while the guys do. He seemed intrigued. He talked said a bit about the tech company he is starting on arbitrage for cryptocurrencies. We had a good energy going, right until his tipsy British housemate interrupted us and started dominating the conversation. (For the record, up until this moment, I actually had the stronger crush on this Brit!) But my conversation with Charles left a positive impression. I was warned that Charles was dating around a lot, but heck, now so am I.

I hadn’t put the 30d30d success secrets to the test in a few months, but finally I felt something. I reached out to Chicago friend and got Charles’s phone number. I texted him that I thought we had great energy together, and I’d really like to see him again before I leave. He replied that he really liked my energy too, and that we’d try to make it happen! Ok, yay.

We settled on lunch the day before I was flying out. I had painfully rearranged my schedule to make it work. One hour beforehand, he texted me saying his coworking space was offering a free lunch today at a conflicting time, and he wanted to squeeze our meet into a short coffee.

Huh? You are prioritizing a free lunch over getting to know me? I was infuriated at first. Then felt defensive. I eventually realized he was not treating this like a date. And regardless, his decision was rude.

I had some options. I could acquiesce and take the coffee, get what I can, and never reveal my disappointment or my original intentions. Build a new friendship, likely, but based on a lie. Old Valentina would have done precisely this.

Or, I could clarify to him my original expectations and disappointment. Call him out for rudely treating a new relationship (whether friendship or otherwise) as less valuable than a free lunch. And then cancel, because I’m not interested in spending my time on someone like that.

This is exactly what I did. And it felt amazing.