The Annoyance of the Reverse Dates as an American Expat

About two weeks or so ago, I had a date set up with some random chick I matched with on Tinder named Yissel.

She actually lived closer to me near Metro Copilco.

So we are only separated basically by one metro station as I live by Metro CU.

Thankfully, there's a few parks I can take her to near either metro station as I tend to go for parks on the first date.

She agreed anyhow to show up near my area.

At any rate, I set the date up for something like May 7th. 

I forgot the exact date it was but it doesn't matter.

It was some day in the first week of May or so (before the 10th which is why I remember roughly when it was and we'll cover why soon).

Anyhow, my memory perhaps wasn't very good on one particular day right before the date because I remember sending her some text about it on the wrong day.

It was right before the date but I must've gotten confused for a second because I assumed it was the day we were going to meet up.

But I misread the dates was all.

How could you misread the dates on a calendar?

Well, as an American, it can actually be a tiny bit easier than you'd think.

It's nothing too dramatic but a slight detail to being an American abroad for those curious.

Basically, as an American, we tend to set our dates as the following: month/day/year.

In Latin America, the dates are set the other day: day/month/year.

So it's actually easier than you think to have a moment where you simply misread the dates on a laptop when they are listed as something like 7/5/2022 instead of 5/7/2022.

Granted, now that I think about it, I'm not sure how I got slightly confused that day as there's no day on the calendar that, if you organized the dates the American way, would look like 5/7/2022 when it's not actually 7/5/2022.

....If that makes sense.

Anyway, it wasn't a big deal.

She seemed embarrassed for a moment being confused but somehow believing what I was asking and thought that perhaps the date was set for the day or two before it actually was.

So I somehow got her to believe it!

But I realized my mistake in the moment.

We met up anyhow a day or two later and that was it.

Still, you might find yourself in other moments like this once in a blue moon where the switching of dates somehow confuses you because you aren't paying much attention to it and your brain reverts to looking at those numbers the American way.

Which, to be fair, I'd agree that the other way of doing it is more logical.

It does make more sense to have it day/month/year instead of month/day/year.

The latter does seem more logical.

But it doesn't really matter, does it?

Actually, it's not much of an issue at all living in Latin America because you get accustomed to looking at the dates the opposite way.

It's only a very minor issue that might confuse you for a few seconds once a year or something.

Now, when you return to the US for a visit after many years living down here, then you might have more moments of confusion reverting back to how it is up there.

Of course, you could just open the calendar on your phone and it'd skip the numbers and show you exactly what day it is without having to guess if the first number is the month or the day.

Which, as we stick to this topic, obviously the issue isn't much of an issue anymore when the date is something like May 20th.

There aren't 20 months in a year so your ability to get confused obviously no longer an issue once you get past those first 12 days.

The first 12 days of Calendar Hell.

Then you're in the clear by Day 13!

....Until the next month starts again.

Anyway, I'm sure I could think of a few other examples of this confusion happening to me (perhaps even on visits returning to the US) but there's no need.

You get the point and let's leave it at that.

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Thanks for reading.

Best regards,

Matt