THE BOYS OF SUMMER

The boys of Buenos Aires are at it again -- luring me, amusing me, infuriating me. Take Alejandro. On Christmas Eve, he contacted me for the first time in months, and last Saturday, I invited him to hang out with me in my apartment. He accepted and promised to be there an hour later, after taking a shower. Now Alejandro doesn't have the best track record -- it's horrible, in fact -- so I rolled my eyes, went back to bed and thought to myself, I'll believe it when I see it. And I didn't. More than a week later, I'm still waiting for him to show up. He didn't respond to my three IMs the day of his no-show, so I assume that either it was something I said or he fell off the platform at the subte station and was crushed by an approaching train. Going with scenario No. 2 makes me feel better.

I may never know -- until he makes his inevitable reappearance (and he will because they always do) and acts like the blow-off never even happened. My New Year's resolution is to stop sweating the small stuff because, when you get right down to it, it's all small stuff. I don't get mad; I don't get even. I just shrug and go on with my life.

I did just that several times this past week when "dates" cancelled on me at the last minute -- the few of them who actually bothered to contact me. Most of them didn't. Get angry? Who, me? Not me. In fact, I was relieved, as I usually am over cancelled plans, which mean I don't have to worry about making myself look presentable.

I didn't worry about making myself look presentable for Eve, a writer with whom I was scheduled to meet on Thursday after my pilates class in order to discuss a writing assignment I wanted her to do. Almost as if to prove that girls can be just as irresponsible as boys. Eve stood me up. Later on, she sent me an email explaining that she had gone out the night before and basically slept through our appointment. I'm in no rush to do business with that one, but I appreciated her honesty.

I appreciated pretty much everything about David, a nutrition student in Cordoba who is visiting his family in BA during his summer vacation. I was actually looking forward to hanging out with him on Friday afternoon, and I was pleasantly surprised when he showed up -- and only about 30 minutes late! I've spent few afternoons in BA as agreeably as the one I passed with David. We talked, listened to music (I was too impressed that he knew Duffy, even though he mistook Robyn for Kylie Minogue), ate Chinese food and made out. A lot. For the first time in ages, there was a guy in my apartment, and I wasn't dying for him to split. When he announced the he had to leave to go to his aunt's house, that feeling in the pit of my stomach was genuine disappointment. He promised he'd return on Sunday. I knew better. He did contact me. Not to cancel, though, but to see if I would send him the photos I took of him (that's my favorite one above).

Saturday night I went out with my friend Alexandra to a rock & roll bar (where they think the rocker vibe is created by music videos from the '80s hair metal likes of Poison, Cinderella and Skid Row). Then we went to Cocoliche, one the hippest underground clubs in BA, with strong, expensive gin & tonics (AR$25, which is about eight bucks). Alexandra quickly disappeared with some guy (it figured), and I sneaked out and headed to the place where I really wanted to be, Glam. As I do any Saturday night that I go to Glam, I ran into my acquaintance Sebastian, and once again, he didn't say more than three words to me. Not that I really have much more to say to him, but I couldn't help but wonder why he's always IM'ing me, sometimes making plans with me (which he's only once kept), yet when we are actually in the same room together, he behaves as if I'm a virtual stranger, which I suppose I am.

Is he just shy or is it a sign of the times, with a youth gone truly wild, interested only in conducting relationships with screen names? Miguel, who is actually Colombian, claims he's shy, but I think cowardly is probably more like it. He IM'd me last night and asked if he could ask me something. I knew what was coming and wondered why guys here always ask permission to ask a question (which usually has to do with penis size or anal sex). As I suspected, he wanted to know if I had gone to Cocoliche on Saturday. He said he saw me there, and when I asked him why he didn't introduce himself to me, he used his shyness as an excuse and the fact that he was more about digging the cool grooves than hooking up. Alright then. While I was cracking up, I wondered why he was talking to me now since he obviously has no interest in establishing a real-life rapport with me? Why did he contact me in the first place on Facebook or Manhunt or wherever my profile caught his eye? When I suggested that we have a proper meeting some day, he didn't respond. Wrong question! Why build face-to-face human relationships when you can waste hours conducting your social life online with virtual strangers?

Friendships are so 2006 anyway! Webcam is the new face-to-face. It's time for me to get with the program.