The Loneliness No One Talks About as an Expat

As I mentioned in my previous post, our difficulty in finding the right tenants for our properties has made 2026 a financial and emotional migraine. But that’s not the only reason my husband and I have been having such a rough time this year.

For some reason, we’ve become very aware of how lonely it can be to be expats in Argentina. Many of the Argentine friends we thought would be there for us through thick and thin have turned their backs on us.

One of them wasn’t much of a surprise, really. The truth is, he had been emotionally unstable throughout most of his friendship with my husband. Only recently did I learn that the main reason he was ever friendly with me was because I was married to his “bae,” as he liked to call my husband. He had no interest in me whatsoever. To be honest, it wasn’t exactly a secret given that he was always acting like he was trying to get into his pants, and when that didn’t work out, he seemingly moved on and went radio silent on my husband.

Another friend, someone I had reached out to daily from August of last year through early January, cut ties with me in a diplomatic but still hurtful way. I still don’t know what brought that on. She had asked for daily affirmations that everything was going to be okay, which my husband and I agreed to give her. The hubs got tired of it and stopped, but I knew how important it can be to feel like someone is in your corner, so I kept going.

To make things more interesting, I even created an ongoing story using AI generated images. It turned into a kind of comic book style narrative with a sci fi drama vibe, featuring celebrities like Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and Katie Holmes. Sometimes I included her in it too. The AI couldn’t recreate her exact likeness, but I made versions from the side or from behind. You get the idea. It was something I put real time and thought into, and it came from a genuine place of friendship.

Here's a sample page of the makeshift comic. Keep in mind that I would usually just send one or two images per day.

Then, a few days after the new year, she politely asked me to stop, saying it wasn’t necessary to continue. Fair enough. I wasn’t going to keep putting in that kind of effort if it wasn’t wanted. But it was how abruptly it ended that stung. It made us feel like none of it had actually mattered to her.

Since then, she has barely reached out. On the rare occasions she does ask how we’re doing, she never follows up after we respond. In my opinion, that’s just shitty. If you don’t really want to know, then don’t ask.

And she’s not the only one.

One thing I’ve noticed with some of the Argentines we’ve befriended is that they’re happy to come over when we host parties. They’ll eat the food, enjoy the moment, and go home with leftovers. But when it comes to actually showing up for us as real friends, things go quiet.

At the same time, our friends and family back home haven’t exactly stepped up to the plate either. On my side, I’m always the one reaching out, and no one checks in on me first. It feels like I’m constantly putting in more than I’m getting back. My husband has gone through the same thing, especially with his family.

When he sends heartfelt messages, the responses are usually just an emoji or a GIF. That might not seem like a big deal if we were living in the States, but we’ve been in Argentina for 14 years and haven’t been able to go back, mostly because of financial struggles. You would think that distance alone would make people put a little more effort into staying connected. Even something as simple as responding thoughtfully or engaging with what we share online would go a long way.

We don’t want shitty GIFs or random YouTube videos. We want an actual conversation. Something as simple as “How are you?” would mean more than people probably realize.

I guess what this year has really done is strip away a lot of the perceptions we had about the people we loved. It’s shown us who shows up, who doesn’t, and how uneven some of our relationships really are.

And maybe that’s the hardest part to process. Not just the loneliness, but the realization that sometimes the connections we thought were solid were never as deep as we believed.

It’s strange. Moments like these remind me of a scene from Superman with Christopher Reeve, when Lex tells Miss Teschmacher and Otis that his father taught him, “People are no damn good.”

I’m starting to think he might have been right.

Empty Houses, Break-Ins, and Bad Realtors

Holy cow! I can't believe we're already in May. One of the reasons I haven't posted since the New Year is because we've been dealing with a lot of setbacks with the properties we own. Last year wasn't a picnic on this front either, but 2026 has really been kicking us in the butt.

It all started because of a decision we made late last year not to renew a long-time tenant's contract. We thought this was a good idea because he had been renting from us for nearly a decade, and in Argentina, that can sometimes lead to a tenant choosing to stay in the property without paying, while the law tends not to favor homeowners. Now, I'm not saying we had any reason to believe this particular tenant was going to do that, but we simply couldn't take the chance.

A couple of weeks into 2026, we discovered the downside of owning a tenant-free property. One day, I received a call from a nearby neighbor telling me that someone had taken the metal gates from the empty house. This in itself was not surprising, but it was still frustrating. It is Argentina, after all. Worse than that, it's Córdoba City, and crime here is the worst.

My dad filed a report at the local police department, expecting little to nothing to come of it, which is typical with Argentine law enforcement.

Two days later, when my dad went to work on the property to get it ready for the next potential tenant, he discovered that the house had been broken into. Obviously, there was nothing of value inside, and yet that didn't stop these hoodlums from breaking the sinks, toilets, bidets, and windows. On top of that, they had ripped out the electrical cables throughout the property. Essentially, they made the house unrentable until the necessary repairs could be made. There was seemingly no reason for them to do this, though we suspect the police themselves may have been involved.

It's been several months, and we still haven't been able to complete all the necessary repairs. At this point, the house has turned into a money pit.

It certainly doesn't help that two of our other properties are currently unoccupied and not bringing in any income either.

And it's not like we haven't tried. We've spoken with two different realtors but have yet to find a decent tenant with co-signers or a stable job. In fact, the realtors themselves have proven to be less than reliable. The first one we worked with showed interest but, in true Argentine fashion, failed to show up for a scheduled meeting. That alone wasn't enough to disqualify him. What really sealed his fate was that three weeks later, he still hadn't put up "For Rent" signs like he had promised, and there were no listings for our properties on any of his websites. So, we fired him and started looking for someone else.

I wish I could say I have faith in our current realtor, but she hasn't advertised the vacancies on any of her sites either. She also seems to be moving at a turtle's pace. This is not uncommon in Argentina. A lot of professionals work on their own timeline, and getting them to move faster is next to impossible.

Suffice it to say, the financial and emotional impact of the repairs and the lack of rental income has affected both my husband's and my mood, as well as our plans for a more exciting start to 2026.

Despite all of this, we have managed to have some fun along the way, but I'll get into more detail about that in my next post.

 

Headaches, Champagne & Jelly Beans: Our Expat New Year 2026 in Córdoba

 2025 is finally over.

I can’t say I’m convinced 2026 will be better, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Every new year I tell myself this will be the one that breaks the cycle in a good way—yet somehow, each year arrives with a fresh batch of headaches. That’s life, I guess.

We rang in the new year in our usual way, minus one tradition. First came dinner which included homemade beer rice, pepperoni pizza, and cornbread. 

Yes, the menu sounds a little chaotic, but we were going for comfort and simplicity. We weren't trying to please Martha Stewart. The hubs adores rice—especially beer rice—and cornbread. I’m more of a pizza guy myself. So we made things we knew the other would enjoy. This was a good thing because we needed comfort food badly. 

As I mentioned in my Christmas post, both our mental and physical energies have been in the gutter for months. Then came the news that two of my closest friends—one in the U.S., one here in Argentina—are dealing with serious health issues. It’s hit me hard especially given the number of genuine people in my life.

I don’t need hundreds of friends or thousands of followers to feel validated. I can count my circle of friends on one hand, and that’s more than enough. I’d rather have a few loyal people than a crowd of half-hearted connections. At the same time I can't afford to lose anyone.

If I sound bitter, it’s because I’ve been burned—repeatedly—by people I once considered close. Some demand endless care but never return it. And I know I’m not the only one who’s experienced that.

The hubs has had his own wake-up call too. After years of showing up for others who never showed up for him, he’s ready to cut ties with anyone who doesn’t value his heart or his time. The biggest sting for him this year? Only two family members wished him a Happy New Year—and those two almost never interact with him otherwise. No likes, no comments, no check-ins. When they do reach out, it’s just GIFs. No real conversation, no “How are you?” or anything of the sort.

Some seem to think that because we moved abroad in 2012 and never went back—we somehow turned our backs on them. We didn’t. But if that’s the story they need to tell themselves… fine. There's nothing we can do about that.

Anyway—back to New Year’s Eve.

After dinner came dessert which included apple pie with “NYE” baked right into the crust. This was the hub's idea. We also had homemade pudding, fruit salad, candy and brownies. 

When midnight hit here in Argentina, we didn’t leap out of our seats. We were deep into disaster movies. But we did pause long enough to clink glasses and say “Cheers!” before returning to the cinematic destruction.

Speaking of movies, here’s what we watched and recommend:

• Geostorm

• The Day After Tomorrow

• Greenland

• Armageddon

• Skyscraper

Around 2 a.m., it was finally champagne time. I may have accidentally launched the cork directly into the hubs’ back—equal parts hilarious and terrifying. He survived but was stunned for a couple of seconds.

Then came our real New Year’s countdown. If you’ve read my previous New Year posts, you know the deal. We don’t officially celebrate until midnight Eastern Standard Time back in the States, because we’re both Floridians. So we streamed the Times Square ball drop, and that’s when 2026 truly began for us.

As soon as I hugged the hubs, the tears came. Not cute little movie tears. Full emotional waterfall. This has become a thing for me the last few years. Maybe it’s my system finally purging the year. Maybe it’s exhaustion and depression. Maybe it’s grief or hope colliding at the same time. I don’t know. But the breakdown seems to grow each year.

Thank goodness for champagne. Liquid emotional support as I call it.

The one tradition we missed? The grapes. Every year we each eat 12 grapes at midnight, one for each wish or intention for the new year. This year, the grapes at the store were either bad, overly priced, or nonexistent. So we found an alternative.

That's right! Jelly beans to the rescue. And let me tell you: every single bean carried a fully emotionally-charged, Wiccan-blessed intention for 2026. Because sometimes magic is less about ingredients and more about intention.

No resolutions this year either. I never keep them, so why set myself up for failure? But I did promise myself this:

• Get out of the house more

• Stop pouring energy into people who don’t pour any back

And that’s enough.

To anyone reading this—if your 2026 is off to a beautiful start, I’m genuinely thrilled for you. If it isn’t, I hope whatever you’re carrying gets lighter with time.

Until next time…