Mexican Living Survival Tip # 10 – Love, Belonging, Power, And Fun

William Glasser, M.D., of Reality Therapy fame, said this,

“…I believe that we are genetically programmed to satisfy four psychological needs: love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun.”

If this is true, then you need to have a plan, a huge plan, for just how you are going to be able to meet these needs if you expatriate to Mexico. If you don’t, then what will happen is what I see all the time in American gringos.

They move to Guanajuato. For reasons I cannot fathom, they move here not knowing more than two words of Spanish. But they come and somehow they start a life here.

They spend their days holed up in front of satellite television where they can watch all the shows they watched in America. They drive a car to the supermarket to shop. They come home and sit in front of the satellite television and watch more of the shows they watched when they were in the United States.

They claim that the majority of their friends are Mexican. This is a wonder since they themselves cannot speak Spanish. So, I deduce that they have to mean that the majority of their friends are Mexicans who are bilingual. This has to mean there are a few Mexicans in Guanajuato who speak at least some English.

These gringos cannot attend cultural functions that require them to understand Spanish. The only movies they see are those they’ve brought from the United States because the movies in the theaters here are usually in Spanish.

There I go again haranguing about Spanish.

In my view, this is no way to live. This type of life would not meet my need for belonging or fun in any way. What kind of existence is that? If I wanted to live like that I would not have gone to the enormous bother to move to Mexico. You might be interested to know that these expats make frequent trips to the U.S. to get things they cannot obtain in Mexico. This translates to this:

“We cannot really stand Mexico. We tolerate it only because it is cheap to live here and it has year-round good weather. But, in the end, Mexico does not appeal to our American tastes. That’s why we spent a small fortune to bring our American materialistic goods to Mexico and why we go back to the U.S. to obtain those things which appeal to our American tastes.”

Why go to the bother to move here if you are looking for things that appeal to your American tastes? Why not stay in America?

These are people who somehow, someway manage to bungle themselves into living in a part of Mexico that is not really gringo-friendly. They would have been better suited to living in a place like San Miguel de Allende or Puerto Vallarta.

They are not meeting their basic human need for fun or belonging because they cannot. The reason they cannot is because they are too linguistically challenged to participate in any activities other than watching satellite television and socializing with the few expats who live in Guanajuato.

If you cannot or will not learn Spanish, then it would be advisable to expatriate to an area of Mexico where you do not have to speak the language. In those areas, the cost of living is going to be considerably higher. Everything from food to housing to entertainment will cost you far more than if you lived in Guanajuato.

My wife and I were once sitting in El Jardin when a gringo woman approached us. She was dressed like a San Miguel resident. We soon learned our initial impression was correct. She was from San Miguel de Allende and was in Guanajuato looking for a place to live. She could no longer afford to pay the increasing rent charged by San Miguel landlords.

She told us that she was having great difficulty finding housing (she didn’t speak Spanish…could that possibly contribute to her problem?). She also told us that she heard there were no cultural events in Guanajuato.

Believe this or not, I am convinced that the majority of gringos in San Miguel de Allende, if the truth be known, believe this.

This woman was actually told that there was nothing fun to do in Guanajuato. Her perception of fulfilling her human need for fun was to attend cultural events like concerts, the theater, and movies. She was told she would not be able to do that here because they did not exist!

We told her that there is the three-week-long International Festival of Arts in Guanajuato—The Cervantino Festival—each October, not to mention the many year-round events. But, we informed her, you have to be able to speak Spanish to understand them. This is a Spanish-speaking town.

Guanajuato defines fun with its year-round events. There is theater, movies (commercial and fine arts), there are concerts, art exhibits, etc… However, if you wanted to attend a movie you have to speak Spanish. When we first moved here, a lot of movies were in English with Spanish subtitles. Now, more and more movies are entirely in Spanish with no subtitles at all.

Thank God for that!

This woman, whose visage is burned into my memory, said sadly, “Oh, then I guess I would have to learn some Spanish.” She said it like someone who just realized they would have to take rabies shots.

There is a lot in this town to satisfy your human psychological need for love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun. I wonder just what Americans think the Mexican nationals do here all day long: sit like lumps scratching themselves and grunting like apes?

Mexicans have to meet their basic psychological needs too. They do it much like Americans do. They go to movies, the theater, concerts, opera, lectures, parties, and to social gatherings where they have human fellowship.

But, as I am at the point of being sickeningly repetitious, Americans cannot do this here because they are not able to handle the language. There is not a huge gringo population with which to have involvement.

And, because they cannot handle the language, they are forced either to seek out the few gringos with whom they can speak English or they hole up in their houses with their satellite televisions.

I cannot understand this. Maybe it is psychologically damaging in the long run to move to Guanajuato if you will not learn Spanish. Your ability to meet the psychological need for love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun will be relegated to watching your satellite television, driving to the Supermarket, and getting back home to watch more satellite television. Just how long with you last doing that?

That is too pathetic to imagine.

The lesson here:

You could expatriate to Guanajuato where the weather is almost perfect all year and life is inexpensive. You could somehow muddle through getting a place to live and set up your life. You could do this without being able to speak the language. People do it. But, your life, the ability to meet your basic psychological need for “…love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun…” is going to be via satellite television.

Who would want to live like that?