November 2021 – Lisbon, Portugal

I matched with the Sultan; a young, tall, strikingly handsome Londoner with sultry eyes and profile pictures that exuded confidence on Bumble while in Lisbon.  He was not my usual type, and I highly doubted I was his, but I gave him a little swipety-swipe anyway because by bachelor #11 my International Tinderella confidence was having a growth spurt. To my surprise, we matched.

We exchanged a few cute messages, then the sultry-self-proclaimed-sultan started getting suggestively spicy – he was just full of surprises.  His spicy was pretty PG-13 and not the standard immediate ick of someone who gets way too sexual way too fast (or the ever present, never pleasant, unsolicited dick pick of the modern interwebs man), so I was into it.

Again, throwing me for a loop, the Sultan asked if I was free the following afternoon… odd hours for a potential sexy date, but maybe he really did just want to get an afternoon cocktail.

We met at a restaurant right outside my Airbnb with a beautiful patio offering views of the city.  He was, equally handsome in person, but the cockiness that radiated from his pictures was lacking live action. He was soft spoken and much quieter than I anticipated.  I quicky ascertained he was not that in to me, but then when we reviewed the drink menu, he said he was very hung over from the previous night since he is not a big drinker, but he and his friend went out and partied all night.

Trying to figure out if it was just the hang over, lack of interest, or he just wasn’t that exciting… I ordered a sangria and he ordered a Capuchino and we continued our afternoon date.

We talked about Lisbon and what had brought him and his friend there, what they had done so far on their visit, and what they had planned for the rest of their time. I shared some of the things I had done and made a couple of recommendations.  We talked about our jobs and some other pretty basic/surface stuff.  Decent conversation, very nice to look at, but not quiiiiite a vibe.

After about an hour and a half of chatting and sipping sangria and Capuchino/water respectively, his friend called and asked where he was.  They had plans to meet back up, which the Sultan neglected to tell me when I pushed our meet up time back an hour.  He said his friend was fine and that he didn’t need to go meet him, but I was pretty much tapped out on leading the conversation and being the only one day drinking, so I told him to go ahead and meet his friend and offered an obligatory “we can always meet back up later”.

He kindly offered to walk me back to my Airbnb, and I let him since it was right around the corner. As we approached, he commented that he didn’t have service to call an uber to take him to meet his friend and was going to walk back to the restaurant to get back on their Wi-Fi.

I told him that was silly, and I would either just get him an uber or he could come in and connect to my Wi-Fi and call one from there.

He said he didn’t want me to pay for his Uber and he didn’t have cash to pay me, so double checked it was okay to come in, which of course it was.

THAT was where the confident, sultry, “sultan” from those pics and messages came out.

He looked at me with those dark eyes and next thing I knew we were in a full make out before the door was closed.

The WiFi ploy was a good one, and well played, I must say. In retrospect: Duh! of course it was suggestive, but I really didn’t think he was in to me in any way.

I was a little caught off guard, but definitely not mad about it.  The conversation might have fallen just short of a vibe, but the physical chemistry did not.

We quickly moved to the bedroom…

but even more quickly…

moved out of it…

That momentary cockiness faded quicker than the quickness with which he finished.

An awkward conversation followed with the standard explanation this doesn’t usually happen to him, and an agreement to “try this again” before he left Lisbon, while he waited for his Uber.

Of course I didn’t hear from him again, but I didn’t expect to.

At least his friend wasn’t left waiting.