Distrust/What is friendship?

I’ve been having some “miscommunication” problems with some of my Peruvian friends lately (none of whom I have met through Tere). Usually the circumstances involve a promise to either contact me or provide a ride, then nothing happens and I am left disappointed or in an awkward position. Also, I have learned to expect any social event to take place at least thirty minutes and often over an hour after the time it was originally planned to begin. As in Indonesia, this is often because of logistical difficulties and a desire to please, but I feel that it is a bit more blatant and with fewer pleasantries with the guys I’ve been counting on lately.

I think the problem stems from distrust, which I blame ultimately on Peru’s poverty and the great divide between the have and have nots. The guys I have been hanging out with are from the upper class, run their own businesses and have houses on the most posh beach, Playa Asia. One even interviewed with Harvard Business School (HBS) and hosted three HBS American friends that came to visit Peru from Boston – just for the weekend. Some of my negative experiences might have been because I felt left by the wayside to give more attention to the special guests. I came out of the weekend with the impression that the appearance of kindness was more important than kindness itself. In such a poor country, these guys have had to fend off people trying to cheat them their whole lives. With that comes the defense mechanisms that make them “forget” to return phone calls or “not think about” how you might need a ride. A new Dutch friend gave me a good linguistic illustration of this phenomenon. When invited to a party, both “yo vengo” and “yo venga” mean “I come” in Spanish. However, for Peruvians, “yo vengo” connotes that you will definitely show up, whereas “yo venga” implies enough doubt to mean “it should surprise you if I actually show up”. I am clearly not yet used to these subtleties.

Being around the HBS guys also made me think about friendship. These guys were absolute “type A” personalities, very competitive. Every interaction was a challenge or usurpation of the other. I had high hopes for one, who ran an NGO for technical consulting to emerging businesses in Peru a few years earlier, but it seems that they would all be headed to private equity shops and i-banking.

I joined them for dinner at Jose Antonio’s, one of Lima’s best Creole restaurants, and was surprised when one of them decided to create a tournament for everyone to participate in. The rules were that the two girls who joined us chose between two of the guys at a time to decide who they wanted to see take off his shirt. At the end, the winner would have to actually take off his shirt in the mostly empty restaurant. As he chose which two guys the girls would choose between, I began to wonder whether he had constructed this elaborate plan just to belittle his friend, who ended up winning the tournament and being too embarrassed to take off his shirt.

Also at the dinner, one friend asked everyone at the table to tell their favorite stories about another one in their group. He would film the stories on his digital camcorder. I was touched by the story of one of the Peruvians, who told about the time he went to Miami, spent all his money and after 4 days of starving, met up with the guy who bought him the best breakfast he had ever had. I thought this was a very nice way to commemorate a friendship. Then, the HBS guys each told their stories about the guy. One story was about a time the guy had helped clean up an apartment, but ended up leaving all the trash and rotten food in a drawer under the sink, where he thought a trashcan should have been. The other stories were about a time when he “motorboated” a girl’s chest in a bar and made fun of overweight girls in Croatia. Later on in the night, I realized that not only had it just been a scheme to embarrass the friend, but also video evidence that could later be used as leverage. Wondering if HBS had fostered this competitiveness for the purpose of ego-building, I asked the guy who proposed the story-sharing if they were always so mean to one another. He said, “I think the more bad things you know about someone, the better the friend you are”. Apparently, he and the others were very good friends.

I felt on edge the whole time I was around these people. Rivalry and competitiveness are surely positive things in some circumstances, but I am so thankful that I have friendships in my life with people who I would rather praise than belittle. I am also thankful that I was raised to treat others with the same respect that I would expect for myself. I have not given up on communicating with my Peruvian friends, but I certainly had an enlightening weekend.