I am made up of many things: Native American, English, African, Bulgarian, French…pick something. One thing I am not, however, is Brazilian. I never thought that this would knock me out of the dating pool, but in the case of Best First Date, it in fact does.
Things were going quite well, I thought. We had our marvelous first date. We were planning our second. We emailed and/or talked on the phone several times a day. And then things started to get a little weird. Suddenly, he started pushing off the date for when we would get together next.
First, there was the sick uncle. His mom was out of the country, and she asked BFD to check up on the uncle Thursday and Friday. We were supposed to get together on Friday. On Thursday, his uncle was feeling pretty good. They went out to eat and watched the Red Sox crush the Yankees. Again.
On Friday, he suddenly remembered he had to work his second job at night. The thing is, he had originally planned to be in Mexico all week. The trip was all set, he had his plane tickets, etc. He told me all this when we were getting to know each other, and we talked about it on our first date. But then he canceled nearly at the last minute because he said the trip didn’t “feel right” anymore. The idea of going on a trip alone suddenly didn’t seem appealing.
So he hadn’t gone into work for his day job all week. But suddenly he had to go to work for his night job on the day we’re supposed to get together? Anyway, so there was work Saturday and things he suddenly remembered he had to do for church and last-minute his mom asked him to pick her and an uncle up from the airport, so he canceled our “sleep over” that night and date into Sunday.
He was insistent that we get together on Sunday, however. He supposedly got sick on fried clams the night before and was up all night. So he set our date first for 2:00 p.m. Then for 4:30 p.m.
Then, it was 6 p.m. when he finally got here, and he could only stay a little while. We ate at the tavern down the street then grabbed coffee for him, hot chocolate for me, and donuts for us. Then he left. It was a pretty lame second first date, to be honest with you, but it was nice to see him again.
He sent me a sweet email that night saying how glad he was that he drove up, how nice it was to be with me again. I emailed back. And then there was a long silence…No email back. No phone calls. No texts. I finally texted, “Are you alive?”
It took him a while to finally text back how busy he’s been with work and friend drama. On Tuesday, he said he had to do something for his church that night, and if he didn’t have the chance to call that night, he’d call Wednesday.
Wednesday rolled around. I gave him until almost 11 p.m. before texting:
Hey there. Hope you are well. Just wondering…have you met someone new who strikes your fancy? Is so, that’s fine—you can let me know. 🙂
Then he called and proceeded to tell me that he was also on some Brazilian dating sites. I knew he’d been to Brazil five times in the last couple years. In an earlier conversation, when he wondered if those trips had been fruitless, I joked, “What are you hoping to meet some Brazilian goddess of your dreams?” And he had actually said, “Well, sort of.”
So, when he told me there was a Brazilian girl or two that he’d been getting to know through these dating sites, it wasn’t a complete surprise, but I still was confused. Had I read everything wrong? No, he had said what a wonderful first date we’d had too.
On the phone, he was talking about past lives and reincarnation and tying it to Brazil, and I was thinking other things in my mind, only half listening to his babble. “Am I crazy to think that I am supposed to find someone in Brazil? Me with my pasty white skin” he said. “I haven’t really been in serious relationships.” And now I paraphrase: “Maybe that’s for a reason. I’m not supposed to be here, but down in Brazil.”
I started to feel relief that I was finding out the degree of this bit of crazy now and not later.
I thought of V-Man and his obsession for Spanish girls. I put “Other” as my ethnicity on Match and indicated I also spoke Spanish (I had taught Spanish previously and was teaching in a bilingual school at the time), I think he thought I was Spanish when he first was starting to get to know me.
Sorry to disappoint you guys. I’m a hybrid of a different flavor.
Two Tahitian Women on the Beach at Night by Paul Gaugain
It’s just strange to me that BFD would limit his dating choices to one type of girl. I mean I know people who only date black people or white people or Asian or whatever. Often, these are people dating within their own ethnicity or culture though.
It makes me think of exoticism and this class I took in college, how people like the French Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gaugin idealized the Tahitians. All those naked, lush Tahitian women he painted. As if that’s all they had to do in life, frolic by the water in the nude to be admired by foreign men.
I told BFD that it would be a shame to brush off an amazing girl just because she wasn’t from Brazil. Yet I said he should by all means pursue getting to know Brazilian women. All these trips and language study shouldn’t go to waste, and he should go for it if that’s really what he was looking for. I wished him the best.
He’s got his issues. Don’t we all? Unfortunately, I’m not sure his will go away just because he moves to Brazil and meets his supposed dream girl. But hey, that’s not my problem. Now if only I can find a hot Australian. Or Brit. Or Frenchman. Or Spaniard. Or Californian. Or Texan. Or…
SingleInMy30s 