... in response to Age Differences, posted by littlebhuddha on Sep 27, 2002[This message has been edited by FredFresno]
It seems to me that I've heard more about large age difference with gringos and caleņas, and less so with bogotanas. In the case of LAI you need to remember that the women pay a fee to be a member of that agency. They might feel themselves to be in a position to be a bit more particular than the female members of some agencies. Also, as you get older, you get more blase about the difficulties you've dealt with all your life (even in Colombia!) and more apprehensive (or realistic) about the difficulties of leaving family and friends, perhaps learning a new language (or at least learning it much better), and moving to a foreign country. Having said all that, I'd say do your prep work (read up, learn Spanish, etc.) and go down and see what you find. I dated some bogotanas 10 years younger than me and decided that, based on compatibility of personalities, my best chances for "until death do us part" were with a bogotana who, as it worked out, happened to be my own age (42). It depends on what you're looking for; some gringos and some latinas aren't looking for anyting close to "until death do us part".
One other thought I'd throw out. In Latin America, often the family is the only social services agency that actually works. "Chronic care insurance" often means that you have a son, daughter, or other family member who will look after you. A 40-year-old latina is more likely to have seen this up close and personal than a 20-year-old, and more likely than a 20-year-old to say to herself "how does this scenario play out if we fast-forward it 20 or 30 years?" I've seen situations in which women of that age were more disposed towards "amgios con derechos" situations than to marriage, particularly with men older than themselves, and I suspect that the possibility of ending up as a nurse rather than a wife was part of it.
If I were 30 minutes from la frontera rather than 6 hours away, and I were starting the search over, this time I'd do a lot more groundwork (improving conversational Spanish, seeing what I might find, etc.) in Baja California, Baja California del Sur, Sonora, and other parts of Mexico. It can only help when one gets to Colombia, and one can find a reason not to go there.
