I went to Spain intending to make out with a Spanish dude. My friend Beau recently got back from Europe. His trip was fueled, as far as I can tell, by mad, passionate sex parties. Basically rather than flying from one ancient medieval city to the next, the energy of his boner propelled him through space and time. A woman whose stand-up specials I have promoted in this very blog met her sig o while cavorting through Europe and they post pictures of their adorable intercontinental love regularly. I did not have such grand ambitions. I just wanted to make out with a Spanish dude. My mom and I recently tromped through Norway and London together on a wonderful trip. As soon as the plane touched land, I updated my location and waited for messages from sexy Norwegian *menn, though obviously I wasn’t going to do anything about them. You don’t ditch your mom for a hookup. *menn is Norwegian for men. Oceans divide our two peoples.
Fun fact: Norwegian menn say “Hei” instead of “Hey” in their first messages. Other than that, they seem to be identical to American men. I wasn’t that into the idea of a Norwegian romance, anyway. I mean, try feeling like a ~spontaneous fling ~ might be fun when this is the weather. In London a man calling himself “Shubbs” messaged me, but I was more into visiting London friends than his beefy biceps. Also I was still staying with my mom, and it would have been very cheeky indeed to leave her to see what Shubbs meant by: Mmmmm that’s what I call a classy and pretty attractive woman, daymn [sic] jessica, you look amazingly hot and tasty Hmm. When I think “hot and tasty” I think of fresh steamed dumplings. Also, “pretty attractive?” C’mon, Shubbs. Mom and I said our huggy goodbyes, and I headed off to Spain. Finally. La vida loca. Los labios de un hombre español! Only not quite yet, since the flight was delayed four hours and my leisurely first evening in Madrid turned into an excruciating midnight arrival. ¡Qué decepción! Exhausted and frustrated, muttering voodoo curses to the 40ish teens coming back from an exchange trip, I arrived in Madrid way behind schedule. I messaged with abandon. My Spanish abilities were being SEVERELY TESTED. Example: Sergio: Hola que tal? Hey, sup Me: Hola Sergio. Guapo perro.



can’t get into any more detail. They were probably even more explicit than you think. No one else seemed to feel so disgusted, though. An American med student followed up with a story about screwing a girl in Ibiza in his shared dorm room, and his buddy laughed and reminded him that he’d also taken pictures. I simply shut up, walked over to some girls I had met earlier, and spoke Korean for the rest of the night. I hated everybody speaking English in that place.
After that, I gave up trying to meet someone in Spain. Not because I was put off romance by Mike and his story, or because I was so disappointed in the rest of us for listening and not condemning, or even because of some niggling fear that somewhere, in some context, I’m someone’s pathetic sex story. Not even because it’s just not that safe for a woman to meet a dude when she doesn’t know the area or speak the language perfectly. I gave up on meeting someone because I remembered that I really don’t like most people. Not exactly true. I’m sure most of those people, other than Mike, were fine. Without the bacchanalian drinking, maybe we all would have become friendly and gone to Toledo together the next day or something. Yet, this incident reminded me that so, so, so many people are just one story away from disgusting me, or disappointing me, or simply boring me to death. I’m willing to put up with that in the States, when a lame date just means I’ve wasted a Netflix night. In Madrid, though, in beautiful Spain where I only had four days to experience as much as I could possibly wring out, I wasn’t willing to risk it. I wasn’t willing to risk meeting a Mike I had to get rid of when I only had the one chance to stare at Hieronymus Bosch paintings at the Prado Museum. I might have missed out. Maybe Sergio and I could have held hands and walked through the Mercado de San Miguel together, though I saw a couple get in a fight over churros there. Maybe Juan and I could have smooched in the Real Jardín Botánico, though it was so blisteringly hot that my legs stuck to a rock. Maybe in some universe, some Jessica is all in love, FB chatting some guy in broken Spanish, planning when they can bring him over. Maybe. I make myself a pretty great travel companion, though.
2 Comments
Leave a commentThis is great! You are great! Sorry those bros exist. Really puts my life experience into perspective, that poor woman!!!
I’ll survive ^_^ Hopefully those bros will grow up and be gentle, not-crazy, adult Australian men.