Mexico 2022 - Meeting Facebook Friends Face to Face

 I had met a man through Facebook about my age, who, by chance, was going to be in Guadalajara with his partner at the same time as I. I suggested we meet for lunch or dinner while we both were there. We settled on breakfast.  We met at a coffee shop he was familiar with. From there we would walk to a breakfast place he knew of. His partner was working remotely during their stay, he was retired, so he had his days free.  

A waifish young Mexican served us cappuccino. With his painted fingernails and tiny nose ring he looked as if he could have been walking down a Chicago street instead of serving coffee in Guadalajara. Many people, particularly  younger ones, are today becoming increasingly homogenized due, among other things, to the proliferation of mass media. I remember a discussion, decades ago, with a British couple in Europe bemoaning the creation of the common market because of this very thing. I remember them saying "You used to be able to tell the French child from the English child from the German one. Not anymore." This was in 1973, this has been going on for some time. The influence from the U.S. seems to be the strongest. Not sure that is necessarily a positive thing. 

We met in an area called the Colonia Americana, which I had intended to visit as I had not had an opportunity to do so, or the knowledge it existed, on my previous trips. He had done some research so was able to point out things of interest and cultural and historical factoids. The area is home to a number of mansions dating from the end of the 19th century. They had been built on what was, at the time, cropland outside the city center. 

We enjoyed a generous breakfast on the porch of one of the grand, old, repurposed homes. We shared our life stories and experiences, quite different from one another and discussed common interests. I thrive on conversation and he was easily my match in that regard. 

We spoke of age, travel and art as well as the changes we had witnessed in the world over our lifetimes as we walked and shared a meal before bidding each other adieu as he left for his daily afternoon Spanish class.