When Love Has No Shared Map\n

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Dear listeners, relationships are complicated enough when two people share the same language, the same culture, the same set of unspoken rules. But what happens when none of those things are shared? When you are navigating love and connection in a place that doesn't operate by any of the maps you are given. So what does that experience reveal? Not just about that other person, but about yourself. About the assumptions that you didn't even know you were caring. So today's guest moved to Peru en retirement and decided to write about what he found there. And it turned I mean it turns out this story is all about a lot more than dating. So hey device, welcome back to another powerful episode of Healthy Mind Healthy Life where we explore the full, honest, sometimes surprising territory of what it means to live well. I'm your host, Avek, and I'm really, really glad that all of you are here today. And my guest today is a US citizen who retired to Peru and ended up with the materials rich enough to write a novel trapped in deception. A story rooted in the very real complexities of cross-cultural connection, the differences in how men and women think, and what happens when you try to build genuine relationships across all of that. So not too much of a time. Let's welcome our guest, Ken Edward Webb. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Amazing.

Why Retire To Peru\n

SPEAKER_00 1:49

So Ken, like uh before we get into the book and everything it explores, um, I want to start with the decision itself. Like, um, retiring to Peru as an American is not the most conventional choice. So, what drew you there? Like, what surprised you most about uh what life actually looked like once you arrived?

SPEAKER_01 2:11

I think what surprised me most is what they call Peruvian time for one of time, and that is, you know, you confirm with somebody. Uh, this is outside of work. At work, they're punctual, but on anything else, you confirm with them, you know, we're gonna meet seven in the evening, something like that. And no matter how many times you confirm, for it seems to be most of the people I've run into, you know, they're they're gonna show up 7:30, 745. Uh the idea of being punctual. Now, I've I don't want to step on any toes or offend any Peruvians who are listening because there are those who are very punctual. But what I found mostly, I mean, I don't think they're doing it to be rude, but I I think it's just their cultural thing that seven is just kind of like, well, seven-ish. No matter how many times you tell them that, that was a shock to me. And then uh I I I guess also their their their pushback on technology. I mean, they all have phones, but as far as uh other things, as far uh they're not big on technology, but it's more the

Peruvian Time And Tech Pushback\n

SPEAKER_01 3:25

the punctuality that's bothering me. I don't care if somebody's into technology or not.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

I think exactly. And um deception, um, that title is doing a lot of work, and it suggests that the deception isn't always obvious, isn't always intentional, and might be uh might even be mutual, also. So so what is the central misconception about cross-cultural dating and relationship that your novel is quietly pushing back against? Like uh if I have to say, like uh, what do people assume about connection that the reality keeps contradicting?

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Okay, well, my my novel is not about relationships, but however, it does involve people in both the United States and in Peru. And uh because I was living here also when I I wrote it, and it it's just uh I mean the the different the the culture, the way they they understand things, it's it's good and bad. I guess as a retiree, it's mostly good. I think if I was working here, I'd get frustrated. But the the traffic here is is just horrible. Uh terrible congestion. It it can take, I mean, just to go five miles can take 30 minutes easily. In some cases, you're better off riding a bike or just walking. Uh and it it uh the the cultural thing, the horn honking, uh, even when they're at a street light, I I don't understand. The cars are supposed to get up and fly away. Uh I I don't understand why what you're benefiting honking when you know the light is red. I guess it's just anger. Uh but it in in uh my novel, uh the the the person, the the bad guy escaped to Peru. It was a good place for him to hide, uh pretending to be a missionary down in Huancayo, which is a town in Peru.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Understood. So um, and and like uh the difference, the difference in how men and women think, which you

Culture Shock Beyond Dating\n

SPEAKER_00 5:40

name as a central to the story, is something most people acknowledge in the uh abstract, but uh rarely examine carefully in practice. So, what did living in Peru, uh observing and navigating relationships there teach you about those differences that in in my personal life, the the way the women think, every relationship I've had here with a woman, I mean I got very angry at a woman last Saturday night.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

I had a date with her, and I was gonna take her to the Hilton, a very expensive dinner. Uh, we'd gone on one date, she was very late. Uh, she apologized, she told me she was punctual always, so I actually expect her to be kind of on time on that date. But you know what happens. The second date, I came 30 minutes early, making sure she wouldn't be waiting on me, expecting her to be punctual, and she just didn't understand. I mean, I guess about seven minutes after the planned date time, she said she was close, which here doesn't mean you're like two minutes away, it means you're more like 2530. So she got upset with me, canceled the dinner date. I've actually never had that before where I was just left there at a nice dinner. Uh other cultural things. Uh well, it's it's uh the the drama, really. I mean, I lived in Germany for a while. Uh I had a Filipino girlfriend once, and I I I see where the Latinas, and I don't know if Filipinas fall under Latinas, but it's it's similar. It's a whole lot of drama. It's it's the emotion is often more important than the fact. Uh this woman was pointing out to me, even though I was frustrated with her, that she was heading to my location, and like that justified her being very late. I had a date one time with a woman. This this happened once, this will never happen again. But she was three hours late, and I found out she didn't leave her house for two hours after the dig time. I don't think she did it intentionally to harm me, but she did it, I guess something else came up and she figured I could just wait. And when somebody does that to me, what even though they they probably don't mean me any harm, but to me, what they're telling me is that their time is more important than mine. Because I mean, in the military, and I'm retired military, the higher ranking officer, you wait on them. And they're not supposed to be doing it to punish you, but essentially their time is more important than yours. Uh, because they if they have something to do, they need to take care of it, and you

Punctuality Fights And Dating Expectations\n

SPEAKER_01 8:24

you're just gonna wait and you're not gonna complain. And uh I I expect I I do believe the man should wait on the woman, the man should show up first. I do believe that. I believe the man should pay for the date. But I I also think that there should be some respect for my time. I mean, a little bit. You don't you don't have to pay for the date. You should say thank you. Uh, you can do some kind gestures. And I I was dating a girl here once, and I mean I had strong feelings for her, but uh she she thought that she could change my mind. She wanted to have kids. I feel I'm too old to have kids. Uh she kept bringing it up. Finally, I cut her off at the knees. I said, Look, that's not going to change in two months, two years. I mean, that that's it. And uh we broke up, she came back to me, and then that subject came up again, and I realized I just couldn't do it. Uh, cultural things I would say are a lot of drama. Uh I I don't think that, and I don't know if this is just women in general or not. I I know not to ask a woman her age. I never do that. Unless I think they're like a teenager, then you know, oh hi, nice to meet you. Oh, yeah, you in ninth grade? Okay, great. Uh, but uh I I'm seeing dishonesty here, and I'm I'm real big. I mean, I will cut off a friend. I've cut off a good friend before for lying to me. And I I don't think that honesty is as important here as intent. So if you if you lie to me because you're doing it not to hurt my feelings, I'm I'm and I'm not Peruvian, so I can't speak for them, but my perception as a United States citizen living here now is that that's okay. If they did it because they didn't want to hurt my feelings, that's okay. If they did it because they want to hurt me, that's not okay. I'm I'm also getting the impression that it's perceived okay to charge me more than they would charge a local. Them assuming that I have more money than they do. What they are not realizing is although I my money will go farther, I want to return to the United States someday, and it's much more expensive there. So I need more money. Things are much more expensive. Uh, they also, I don't think they understand that we work very hard for our money in the United States. I had a an uh a woman from Ecuador tell me this that they, yeah, they think all Americans are, you know, the United States citizens, because I can't say Americans, because people here will correct me and say they're American too. They think we're all wealthy. But I also think that when you get away from the professionals here, what they call work is different than what we call work. I think that sometimes their concept of work is just being present. I've seen a lot of people in these stores and these markets that just sit in a chair and wait for somebody to come around. I I don't see that in the United States. I see people hustling, I see if they're not uh you know, if they're not actively selling things, they're organizing things, they're moving things. I I'm seeing that their bosses won't tolerate them just sitting there and doing nothing outside of on their brakes.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Um okay. And and like uh we have to say, um your novel is fiction, but I imagine that it draws um very

Honesty, Intent, And Feeling Betrayed\n

SPEAKER_00 12:14

directly from the real experience, um without giving away too much yeah, without giving away too much of the plot. Um uh what is the emotional truth at the center of trapped in deception? Like what is it?

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Well you heard you heard me mention about uh lying is very bad for me. And I'm not gonna say I never lied, we've all lied. But overall, I mean, if you're at work all the time early and you're late one day, you're still at work all the time early. And as a general rule, I am not gonna tell an untruth. I have done it, it was wrong, and I've done it, but I it's betrayal, betrayal by a good friend of mine. And it's it's based, everybody who speaks in the novel is based on a real person. I've exaggerated their qualities. The emails, the text in the novel are taken from real emails and texts. I've changed the names and the dates to protect the guilty. I've altered them minorly. Very little changes. And uh it's just, you know, betrayal and catharsis because the the person has to deal with this person who's betrayed him before and has to bring him to justice. And he has the opportunity to either do the right thing and the legal thing, or to uh really harm this person, and he has to make some choices.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

So um and definitely, I mean, what I hear is that the cross-cultural relationships don't just test your presence or your communication skills, they test your self-knowledge and um they ask you constantly, like, what do I actually think, feel, uh, and want underneath the assumptions the I arrived with? Like and most people have never had to answer that question as directly as you did in Peru. So this is generally uh a rich place to write from. And and and um if we talk about the uh living in the foreign country as a retiree, um, is is not without obviously it's hard days. Uh the isolations, the language barriers, the moments of wondering whether you made the right call or not. Um how so how did you sustain yourself mentally and emotionally in a life that most people um around you are not living and cannot fully imagine from the outside?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Okay, well there is an expatriate community here, and I took advantage of that, and I reach out to them. I'm you know on their Facebook pages for them. I I pose questions. Uh because they've had to deal with these also. Recently I asked a question about taxes because I've been here long

Foreigners, Prices, And Work Culture\n

SPEAKER_01 15:26

enough I'm gonna have to pay taxes in 2027 for 2026 here. And, you know, a lot of people don't obey the law here because they don't think they'll get caught and they probably won't, but I'm gonna obey it, and then there's there's nothing to not only is it the right and ethical thing to do, but there's nothing to catch because I'm obeying their laws. Uh and so uh I I've navigated it. Uh I'm I'm a Christian, I'm in a a church here. I volunteer in the church, I get emotional support from that. Uh as I stated, I was dating a woman here. We were we were starting to get serious, we had some disagreements. Uh we haven't talked in a little while, but I think, you know, eventually, I mean she's gonna find someone who does want to have children with her, and I think we will come back to being friends because we started out being friends, and I think we would we will be friends again. And uh I also make friends with some Peruvians, especially at the language school I study at. And uh I I keep busy. I mean, I wrote my first novel, I study Spanish, I'm preparing for my doctorate.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Okay. So, um okay, and and one more thing I want to ask, like uh this is for the person who is listening, uh who is at the crossroads, uh maybe in a relationship that confuses them or a life stage that feels like a blank page or a desire to do something unconventional that they haven't quite um given themselves permission for. So what do you want them to hear from someone who actually did the unconventional thing?

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Uh I would say do your research. We we live I'm 57, I'm not a young guy. And I I graduated university without using the internet one time. So but we don't live in that age anymore. That was the dark ages as compared to now. So they have uh uh a plethora of resources, and I would say use them. And I I would start off just with something like Chat GPT and ask what are the challenges with this, and then Chat GPT

Writing Trapped In Deception From Real Life\n

SPEAKER_01 17:50

will will lie to you. It'll make something up if it doesn't know the correct answer because I've caught it. So, but it's a good place to start because they'll give you it'll give you real quick feedback, and then you can take that feedback and you can do your own research through YouTube, uh, you can read up on it, and you just need to know what what you're getting into. Uh, you know, you get some people when when I was in England or or Germany, uh, it was like a lot of people just went Dutch. They go on a date and they're like, well, you pay half or most or some of it, and I'll pay the other half. That doesn't work here. The man's paying, especially in the beginning. There is an idea of reciprocity. The girl I was dating, she didn't have any money. I never expected her to pay, but on my birthday, she did. We went to the market, got food, and she cooked me a dinner.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

So, um, and also can like for the listeners who want to find Trapped Interception and follow your story, where can they get hold of the book and connect you?

SPEAKER_01 19:01

Okay. It is on Amazon, both Amazon for the United States and on the United Kingdom. It's available in ebook, soft cover, and hardcover. Uh, I also did an audio book, which I narrated myself. And uh I have a webpage, kenweb69.com. That's kenweb69.com. The 69 is the year I was born. Ken Web6 www.kenweb with two B's, K-E-N-W-E-B-B69.com. Uh additionally, I mean, I have audiobooks. So they can look on YouTube and they can look on Facebook, and um I I occasionally put advertisements up there. I still have, when I say I have audiobooks, I still have codes for free copies of the audiobook. And the only thing I ask, there's no catch. I won't be recontacting them in six months to try to read another book. I'm gonna I will ask them to do a review, but if they don't do it, that's up to them. I won't bother them.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Yeah. So so data science, what I'll do is I'll put all the links, details, everything into the show notes for easy reference. And um, so with this, this is the app for today's episode of Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. And if this conversation made you think about a relationship you are in, a place you have been meaning to go, or a version of yourself you haven't quite given yourself permission to become, sit with that. It's worth more than you think. So, uh there is some skins, book details uh will be there in the show notes. And if someone in your life needs the kind of honest, unfiltered perspective that he brought today, please share this episode with them. And with this, obviously your host of a king. This is Heavy Man, Head Life. The unconventional path is not for everyone, but for some people, it's the only one that leads somewhere through it. So take care of yourselves. See you next time. Thank you so much.