Madrid is a city where life happens publicly and very visibly to all because you are always en la calle. People check you out and decide what your deal is immediately. Are you a student, a foreigner, what kind of foreigner?, a business type, pijo (yuppie), nice old lady, etc..
It is difficult to hide who and what you are, or at least it’s hard to prevent people from judging you immediately from the available information. Take one innocent pastime – reading your newspaper with a café con leche in a bar. Sounds simple enough. However, which newspaper are you reading?
Newspapers in Spain have clear political leanings. You know what you are getting when you buy a particular newspaper, Left or Right. You basically know what that newspaper’s take is going to be on the major issues, and whom they don’t like. In the U.S., newspapers are supposed to be objective and not take a political side (except in the editorial pages). How successful they are at this is another story.
Back to Spain. I don’t know about you, but when I buy a newspaper in Madrid there seems to be some kind of invisible force willing me to conform to the socially acceptable position in Madrid. And that means buying the left-leaning El Pais. Maybe it's my imagination, but I am embarrassed to buy, and to show publicly, a conservative leaning newspaper like ABC. Am I nuts? It seems like I would be announcing to the world what a horrible Fascist I am.... The chicks would not dig it.
My solution? I’ve decided to keep them guessing. Now I always buy both the Left-leaning El Pais, and the Right-leaning ABC. This way I hope to end up right in the middle where I belong. And people can just guess what my politics are – like it’s supposed to be.
