American Businessman Needs a Life
I was browsing the classified ads in Novedades (a local newspaper) today and I came across this ad which just left me stunned:
American Businessman Needs a Wife
For those of you who don’t read Spanish I’ll give you my crappy translation:
American Businessman Needs a Wife
Between the ages of 25 and 45 years
Weighing between 50 and 70 kilos (110 lbs – 154 lbs)
Happy, good presentation (meaning presentable), housewife,
respectful, drug free
Absolutely serious
Then it has interview locations and times.
There all manner of ways in which this is offensive to me. First off the guy doesn’t give any information about himself. There just the icky looking picture. Ew!
Then it’s clear that he’s over 45 himself. Then there’s the fact that he’s advertising this in Mexico; so he expects Mexicans will all rush out and marry some creepy, desperate American guy they know nothing about? The worst thing is that they probably will.
Then I notice that he doesn’t want a woman with education, he wants a housewife. So he must be either terribly boring himself and really likes talking about the best way to clean those toilet rings or he doesn’t actually care if she’s AN INTERESTING PERSON. Well, she’ll be interesting all right, in a desperate, pathetic kind of way.
And then there’s the part about the weight. The average woman on the planet weighs around 142 lbs. So he’s eliminated a huge number of them just with that. Do you think he’ll bring a scale to his interviews?
But for me the worst of all is the crack about being respectful. I think that if I married this man I would not be able to respect myself or him EVER!!!!
The guy is holding the interviews in public, and they are walk-in appointments. So this process is public. That’s majorly icky. But I’m thinking of going and getting a coffee during one of his Cancun interview times. Maybe I’ll bring a bunch of my friends and sit there giggling at him…and taking surreptitious photos.
Probably I should be respectful, this poor man must be really lonely to be advertising this way. And I actually know several happily married couples who met “on the internet”, but somehow this is just too pathetic, too sleazy, too creepy, too one-sided for me. He should have just found a prostitute and offered her a lifetime position. And the woman, well my best advice is to get a great divorce attorney before you walk down that aisle!
March 3rd, 2007 23:18
I have a correction to my translation of this guy’s ad. “Hogareña” does not mean housewife, it means something more like home-body. Housewife is usually written as “ama de casa” which literally means “house master”.
April 16th, 2007 09:41
As a Cancunense, when I stumbled across this blog, I was interested on an American’s point of view of Cancun. After having read all your postings I am curious how long you have lived in Cancun. I noticed that you find comedy in mexican culture such as the towel under the hat, but maybe if you took the time to talk to some of the ‘average mexicans’ such as ‘juicey guy’ or ‘seiscientos’ you may be better informed as to why things in Mexico are done as they are, and maybe even surprised by the practicality of our ‘strange behaviors’. I also noticed that your idea of a good time, is to go to the mall to laugh at a mexican looking for a wife. Maybe his tactic is not the greatest to find a wife, but isn’t it just as superficial to spend your time mocking this man? Before you criticize or mock any more mexicans, please take the time to educate yourself, and tell people not of the ‘oddballs’ or the corruption, better tell the people what you have learned about Mexico or Mexican Culture recently.
April 17th, 2007 10:08
I wasn’t mocking a Mexican in this post, the guy looking for a wife is an American, and he was looking to find a wife in Mexico. And to be honest I think it’s very sad, it’s sad that he got to place where he thinks it’s reasonable to hold interviews to find a wife. And I think it’s sad that he came to Mexico to do it.
Why not put an ad in the New York Times? He chose Mexico because Mexico is a 3rd world country and he thinks he has a better chance of luring someone away with the promise of money. I don’t see how my view is critical of Mexicans. The guy is a creep!
As for the Juicey guy, another creep. And what I didn’t say is that I HAVE talked to him, I have put up with him grabbing my hands and slobbering wet kisses all over them and pulling me too close to him and not letting go. I don’t need to listen to someone who is invading my physical space like that. It’s not cultural insensitivity on my part, it’s harassment on his part. And I’m not the only one, I have several women friends who have had him tell them he wants to screw them. I’m getting off easy with the guy. But I don’t need to be nice about being harassed by him.
And if you had actually read all of my posts (there are about 150 of them) you would know that I am married to a Mexican who has to stand up against terrible corruption in his job, and it’s very, very hard on him. The corruption affects us directly everyday. I’m not just whining about corruption, I’m living with it’s effects.
My blog is not a shiny happy destination blog. I’m not here to polish Cancun’s image. I do try to share something of myself here, I try to reveal something about my experience of life here.
But Mexico is not some magical perfect place, it’s a troubled, growing, interesting, complicated, beautiful place. And so you’ll have to forgive me if my views on it are not simple.