Why do young Americans try to prove that they are more mature than they are? I’m talking about the type that will not hesitate to tell you situations they’ve been in that made them grow “faster” than their peers.

I had a coworker who would always say he’s worked since 16. Or this girl would always tell me she’s lived abroad and is “different” than girls her age, and another who kept bringing up the painful child divorce and how she had to go to school and work at the same time (the horror!). With all that experience I’m surprised they missed visits to countries where 10-year-olds work on the street for food while living in garbage bag tents next to the bus station. I think in that case they’d find their experience to be pretty damn timid.

I’ve done a couple interesting things but it’s never crossed my mind to use that as proof of my value as a person. Your past doesn’t speak for you—you speak for you. Speaking up your past is the fastest way to get labeled as a “douche” if you’re a guy and a “nerd” or “drama queen” if you’re a girl. It’s like that guy who puts his BMW key chain on the bar in a lame attempt to get attention from females.

In the end there is no substitute for the number of days you’ve lived, whether you spent that “living” abroad in some other country during college or not. There’s the claim of experience and maturity and then there’s who you are. One you can lie about, the other you can’t.

Have you noticed that when you jerk off with your other hand, it feels like someone else is doing it?

When I was younger, I used to jerk off with my other hand so it would seem like an alien was abducting me. It was all fun and games until my mom caught me. I should not have told her the truth.

If women knew how to please me, I would not have to jerk off with my other hand.

Since I’ve been back I noticed that every time I’m introduced to a girl the accepted move is to shake her hand. After cheek kissing a thousand girls in South America, I find our custom to be quite distant and unnatural. I wondered if this was only an American thing, so I contacted some people to see what the custom was for other countries.

Argentina: One cheek kiss
Brazil: One cheek kiss, but two in Rio de Janeiro
Chile: One cheek kiss
Czech: Handshake
England: Handshake
Greece: Two cheek kisses
India: You put your hands together and say “Namaste”
Iran: Absolutely no touching
Italy: Two cheek kisses
Netherlands: Handshake
Nigeria: Handshake
Russian: Confusing
Sweden: Handshake
Turkey: Two cheek kisses

photo credit: ravenmaven

And then there is France. I’ll let my French buddy Gregorie explain:

It really depends on the region but it is basically a 2 to 4 cheeck kiss. Most common is two. Four in Paris suburbs or Britany (very stupid, it is a waste of time). Three in some areas but not very common. Bourgeois give only two, lower class three or four (Argentina Mendoza was one kiss…. that was kind of sexy.)

Men usually shake hands, except for V. Good friends tend to cheek kiss but they have to be above 16 to do it. Family, cousins, and uncles kiss each other. When you are introduced to a girl if you are same age and under 30s you can kiss her hello, after it is quite complex there is no rule at all.

It is science & the secret of french love.

I was more than ready to conclude with “Western countries are more distant in their introductions,” but I cannot make such a conclusion, though I do find it is ironic that this culture is perhaps the most germophobic in the world but we continue the practice of hand-germ exchange every chance we get. I’ve started to teach girls I meet about the Argentine introduction, which I find to be most agreeable, but I don’t think it’s catching on.

Number 1: Gladiator

Favorite quote: “My name is Gladiator.”

This is the best movie ever made. Whenever a girl asks me what my favorite movie is and I tell her Gladiator, she rolls her eyes and tells me my stock has decreased, perhaps hoping that I would be “above” such a film and instead mention some indie flick that changed the world. As intelligent and cultured as I am, Gladiator contains everything a real man could possibly want in a movie: brutal violence, sword-play, strength, honor, offscreen rape, incest. I identified so much with the hero Maximus due to our similar life arcs that I cried when he died at the end, and I’m proud to admit that.

Number 2: The Fifth Element

Favorite quote: “Ecto gammat!” (Never again without my permission)

This is one of those movies that you find more and more brilliant each time you watch, sort of like Big Trouble In Little China. There is just so much going on: mongoloids, supreme being, Deebo as the President, robot bartender, Chris Tucker, Zorg, Aziz’s light, and so on. The only reason this is not the best movie ever made is because I did not cry. My entire sense of humor can be contributed to this film, and it’s not even a comedy.

Gimme the casssshhhh…

Number 3: Heat

Favorite quote (more like important life lesson): “You want to be making moves on the street? Have no attachments. Allow nothing to be in your life that you cannot walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you spot the heat around the corner.”

There is an underrated movie that doesn’t get a lot of buzz. People go in thinking it’s going to be this huge action movie and are disappointed when it turns out to be a three hour character movie centered around Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro. It’s the last good movie that Robert DeNiro starred in before he started appearing in dreck like The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, Analyze That, and Meet The Fockers. I find the bank robber story to be just a device to let the actors work their magic. Like me, I think that you will reevaluate your life after watching.

Notable runners-up: Fight Club, True Lies, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Coming To America, Dawn Of The Dead (remake), and Coneheads

A photographer named Wolfram Hahn created a photo series of children watching television.

The children depicted in this series are between three and twelve. Their regards are sad, with facial expressions rather to be associated with adults, unusual for children this age. They regard a spot below the camera; focusing on something in that space not revealed to the viewer. As such they seem lifeless like dolls, or bodies bereft of their spirits.

You can see the photos at his web site. An article was written about it in Art In America.

The photos hit me because I have a four-year-old brother who watches at least three hours of television a day. It’s usually educational programs on PBS or Noggin, but regardless of their value they still co-opt his imagination and train him to take cues from marketers. When he enters a supermarket, he asks for specific brands that are advertised on television and knows exactly where to get them.

A lot of us in our late 20’s are caught up in this multi-task / short-attention span culture, but at least we were spared the most harmful effects of television growing up. All I had to look forward as a kid was Saturday morning cartoons, but these days there are several channels that offer video crack to kids using the latest advances in psychology and brainwashing. I’m afraid that my brother’s brain will be wired differently than mine, and since I’m not his parent there is not much I can do about it.

To be inspired by a girl means you will push until your fate is sealed, not by being desperate but by using the best game you know and have trained for.

Several years ago it didn’t take much to chase a girl: if I was horny and she was alright looking then I’d go for it. But once that insecurity of not having banged enough girls fades after banging enough girls, it takes more than her just having a working vagina. This is true for most men. I’d engage in sexual intercourse with a typical cute girl I meet, but something she lacks prevents me from putting in an honest effort. Maybe it’s a bad vibe or the way she carries herself (or doesn’t). If she made it obvious she wanted to have sex with me I would, but I would never ask her out.

Then you have girls who have the looks and the vibe. There is “something about her” and I’m inspired to put forth everything I know about girls and game to get her into bed. I will not give up until I get her or get rejected. Most of the time I won’t get the girl, but sometimes I do.

Inspiration breeds desire, persistence, and effort. Why is this important? Because those are the things you need to get the best women. And when you are inspired there is a genuineness that comes out that wouldn’t if you were just faking it long enough to get your dick wet.

In Cordoba my digestive system was at its worst. Looking back I don’t know how I dealt with those symptoms and still managed to go out three times a week, pound Quilmes, and hit on as many girls as I did. I was so motivated because I really wanted those girls. There was so much inspiration in an average club that I squeezed my ass cheeks, blamed any gas on my wingman, and dealt with it. It was rough going until the end but I learned more about beautiful girls in that one month than I did in the previous year.

The biggest problem with the Washington DC area is there is little inspiration. There is always something very wrong with the girls; maybe she is fun but frumpy, hot but status and attention-driven, or cute but so witty it feels like you are talking to a cool dude. I go through the motions just to keep my game in shape, like a body-builder would during winter months. Here I’m lazy, in Argentina I stepped up. I went to clubs alone there, something I would never do here.

So that’s the problem with DC, and probably most American cities. The reason so many girls are complaining about guys barely putting in effort and playing the field, about texting instead of calling and not wanting to take them out, is because the guys are simply not inspired. Inspire a man and you will get the best of him. Otherwise he won’t give a shit.

A different side of Brazil most gringos don’t see is the gym. I don’t consider myself a meathead but with the metaphorical anal pounding my body took I was turning a little soft and figured Rio would be a good place to work on my musculature.

First thing is the cost: gyms in Brazil are expensive. The first gym I looked at cost $150 US a month, and it was almost $200 if I wanted to use the pool. While it was the most beautiful gym I’ve seen in my life, with brand new equipment in spacious rooms and even computers with free internet, I opted for the budget $100/month gym. The only major difference it had from a regular gym like Golds or Sport & Health was the LCD screens with satellite television attached to every treadmill.

Just like in the States most gym-goers are guys, but in Brazil the guys are universally huge. 90% of them were gloriously large and ripped, even the one’s in their 40’s. So many carioca guys are in shape that showing off your muscular body on Ipanema beach for example will get you about as much attention as cruising South Beach with a BMW 3 series. I saw only one or two guys during my dozen or so gym visits that were smaller than me. My gut instinct is to think they are on steroids but then again Rio has hundreds of juice bars that have caloric shakes which can be supplemented with protein. It’s also common to see GNC-like shops throughout the city. Creatine for all!

Most importantly let’s talk about the girls. In the States you see a lot of young girls in the gym because of the popularity of female high school and college athletics, but in my Brazilian gym the average female was slightly over 30. But these were the hottest 30 and over women I’ve ever seen in my life, even if a fifth of them had fake breasts. Not only do they have the means and motivation to look good, but they are working off the foundation of Brazilian genes which gives them that legendary ass. If they had it, they definitely showed it.

The best part is that many women wore skin-tight lycra ensembles where you can make out the shape of their vaginas. Do you know the machine that works out the hamstrings, where you have to lay on your stomach and curl up your legs? Imagine the views that machine could offer a gringo pervert who looked at Brazilian women with epic asses wearing one-piece outfits that revealed everything. The calf machine offered very good views of those using the vagina machine. Right now my calves are the biggest they’ve ever been in my life.

There is more of a pick-up vibe in American gyms, where you see guys and girls chatting with each other for extended periods of time without working out. In my gym this was rare but I did try to feel out the vibe by fishing for looks and engaging in light bilingual conversation. It would happen where a girl asked me in Portuguese how many sets I have left or if she could work in (you could tell which by her body language). I would respond in English with something like, “You can work in with me,” but almost every time she’d scatter off after smiling. In other cases I would ask a girl in English how many sets she has left. Instead of offering to let me work in, she would usually say she’s almost done. Even though she’d maybe check me out later, I never got that invitation to conversate, and no girl took the easy bait of asking “Where you from?” that was super common in the clubs. It could be the language barrier but my guess is there is less picking up in Brazilian gyms than American ones.

In conclusion, American gyms are good for being social and listening to T-Pain on your iPod. Argentine gyms are good for spying on the aerobics room were 95% of girls are hot. Brazilian gyms are good for looking at vaginas attached to showroom asses. Brazil wins.

This list you are about to read are things I’ve always noticed about living in the States but which are especially obvious after being away for six months.

- People come in extremely large sizes. It’s amazing how much weight the human body can handle. Also…

- There is no fat stigma or shame, perhaps because we are taught to accept ourselves just the way we are. So you see gigantic beverage and food portions consumed by gigantic people in public. Unlike in some Asian countries, it is not acceptable to tell people you barely know they are overweight.

- People wear corporate logos like North Face, Under Armor or Armani Exchange with pride. They seem to identify with these logos.

- There is a mind-boggling variety of food sold in warehouse-like buildings (supermarkets), but healthy, non-processed, and somewhat natural food such as organic fruits and vegetables are far more expensive than typical food most likely derived from corn or soy.

- On the Metro, everyone has a book with them, with titles such as Making Globalization Work (no lie). You have to be doing something while waiting for something else.

- Americans are pretty funny. If they say their favorite show includes Seinfeld, The Simpsons, or Friends, they are guaranteed to make a good joke at some point in the conversation.

- Most of the middle-class population seems to have a computer phone. At bars half the crowd is typing away on their cute little keyboards.

- It’s okay to put toilet paper in the toilet bowl. But where all that flushed toilet paper go???

- There is a heavy display of wealth. People are showing off that they (may) have a lot of money as a judge of their self-worth. This is a bad idea in many other parts of the world.

In Chile I met a young Dutch guy who was telling me about his girlfriend. She went to India for a month and was so taken in by the culture that when she came back she had “serious culture shock,” moreso than when she arrived in India. He told me that in India there is less display of affection between men and women, so when he picked her up from the airport she only give him a distant hug while in new ethnic garb. At the time I thought, “That girl is full of shit,” and I can confirm it now; I’ve been gone for six months and there is no culture shock. It doesn’t even feel like I’ve been gone.

Brazilian: “Where are you from?”
Argentine: *Crickets*
American: “What do you do?”

Brazilian: Open toe slippers with some design
Argentine: Closed toe
American: Target brand flip flops

Brazilian: Hair length depends on current life stage
Argentine: Has either Argentine Girl Haircut #1 (long, with bangs) or Argentine Girl Haircut #2 (long, without bangs)
American: Short because long hair was “boring” or “too much work”

Brazilian: Makeout within 30 minutes
Argentine: Makeout if you played the game right, if the moon is aligned with Jupiter, and if her friends and little cousins like you
American: Makeout within 90 minutes

Brazilian: Takes off your jeans and boxers
Argentine: Takes off her big earrings
American: Takes off her shoes

Brazilian: She feels comfortable after sex
Argentine: She feels like she just carried out an important life decision after sex
American: She feels like a slut after sex

Brazilian: Clingy
Argentine: Distant
American: Low self-esteem

Brazilian: Gives you head
Argentine: Does not give you head
American: Gives you head if you imply / ask, but secretly hates it

Brazilian: Anal region exploration strongly encouraged
Argentine: Anal regions forbidden
American: Depends on level of intoxication

Brazilian: Has two or three caiprinha’s
Argentine: Has only one drink, the free one that came with her cover charge
American: Stops drinking when she can no longer feel her friends judging her

Brazilian: Knows how to shake and jiggle her entire body
Argentine: Knows how to dance to house music without showing any sexuality
American: Knows how to rub her ass on a man’s erection

Brazilian: Five second marathon eye contact
Argentine: No eye contact
American: Multiple one second eye contacts

Brazilian: Treats you so well you wonder why she likes you that much
Argentine: Treats you like you are that guy on the corner selling hot dogs
American: Treats you like her favorite coworker

Brazilian: Asks you if you are on Orkut
Argentine: Asks you if you are on MSN chat
American: Google’s you the second she finds out your last name. Uses results to judge your long-term relationship potential.

Brazilian: Licks your face
Argentine: Kisses like her parents are watching
American: Sucks your neck

Brazilian: “Dance With Me” by 112
Argentine: “Enjoy The Silence” by Depeche Mode
American: “Back That Ass Up” by Juvenile

Brazilian: Most extra fat winds up in ass
Argentine: Borderline anorexic
American: Rolls of meat around waist

Brazilian: “I like you”
Argentine: Pretends she doesn’t like you when she really does
American: “You’re nice”

Brazilian: Likes social drinking with friends
Argentine: Likes people watching with friends
American: Likes watching TV alone at home with tub of ice cream

Brazilian: Ugly tattoos
Argentine: Ugly piercings and ugly sunglasses
American: Ugly sunglasses

Brazilian: “I need to bang that.”
Argentine: “Wow she is really pretty.”
American: “She looks easy.”

Brazilian: Always answers the phone
Argentine: Always responds to text messages
American: Would miss the call from the President of France if he happened to call

Brazilian: If you like emotional girls who want to please you
Argentine: If you like frigid girls who chain smoke and act stupid
American: If you like frigid girls who act stupid

It is possible that my experience with Brazilian girls have been extraordinary, but then I wouldn’t be the only one. Second place is hard to place; if the Argentine girl and American girl are equally attractive, I don’t think it makes a large enough difference, but since Argentines are much cuter, it will depend on how much you value a pretty face.

Let’s take a lawyer who makes six figures. His lifestyle matches his income so he has a nice condo, a nice car, and expensive tastes. The monthly upkeep is hefty. He has a 401k but is overworked and gets at most one month of vacation a year that he takes in one week increments. Since he is tired, he’ll probably pick a nice beach resort or comfortable European city. His girlfriends are also successful and they expect him to stay successful. Taking random several month breaks to travel or relax is unacceptable; you don’t go to law school and work hard to move up in the firm to save money for a few years and then quit.

Let’s take a bartender or some sort of freelancer. He has low upkeep because he has few wants. His main expense is rent. When he’s tired of his job or his city, he takes off for a month or two at a time, picking up work when he can. He’s free and sees more of the world but money is always a problem and he always has to hustle. He hates his shitty apartment, his disrespectful roommates, and public transportation. And there’s always that nagging feeling in the back of his head that he should have higher status or be more successful. When his girlfriends get mad, they tell him he’s a loser bum.

Where’s the middle ground? How about a 30 hour work-week that doesn’t involve working for a restaurant or bar that pays well and lets you comfortably take two months off a year. Why can’t that be the American dream of owning a McShack, drowning in debt, and spending hours commuting to and from a mediocre job you’d quit if you can?

Even for the people who love their jobs, they are still spending a third of their waking life in an office building trading their labor for an income less than it’s making someone else. I’m sure a lot of those hours can be better spent doing something else.

Either be wage monkey defined by your valuable crap or watch every cent and pray you don’t get sick. Some dream.