November 2021 – Lisbon, Portugal

I matched with Posh Portuguese on Bumble and we were an immediate vibe. He was hilarious, straight forward, no bullshit and called me on mine from the beginning. I was instantly attracted to his wit and self confidence. Him being tall, dark and handsome with a bald head and lips of an angel was just a bonus.

Since our connection was quick, we decided our meet up should be too and decided to take things off line pretty quickly.  He was in Lisbon from London (I was on a serious roll with the Londoners, clearly, and was optimistic third time was the charm). He was visiting family and friends and had a dinner to attend, but we agreed to meet up for a late drink and stroll to look at the Christmas lights.

In true Hallmark romance fashion, this international Tinderella and the Posh Portuguese decided our meet up point would be under the Christmas Tree in Commerce Square.

In true, this is my real life fashion… when we met, the artificial tree was half constructed and a pretty sad sight.  Bachelor #11, however; was not. He was even more handsome in person, well dressed, and carried himself with an arrogance just this side of sexy. He flashed me a ridiculous smile, made a comment about my height and immediately started calling me “babes”, which normally I would hate but coming from him was fanny flutter invoking.

He had an accent I couldn’t quite place; British but with a meld of something else, that just added to his appeal.

We walked up toward some bars and restaurants, and he said there was a place he liked that he wanted to take me to, I was happy to let him take the lead.

I was even happier when we approached a very cute bar I had been wanting to check out and he motioned to go inside. Unfortunately, that faded quickly as we realized they were closing.  As quickly as I was disappointed, I was brought back to smitten kitten land as he started speaking to the host in Portuguese.

I looked at him surprised and said, “You speak Portuguese?” he laughed and said, “yeah, most Portuguese do, I was born here, my family lives here”. Well paint me ignorant; I had made some incorrect judgments… and this cocky man immediately knew it and wasn’t letting me get off the hook easily. He hit me with “Wow, you thought I was right out of Africa, huh?”.  My face and comment had already given me away, so I said “well, yeah”. The Posh Portuguese laughed and made an inappropriately appropriate comment about Portugal and the slave trade, and we carried on.

We found a close by bar where the Posh Portuguese clearly knew the majority of the staff. He ordered us drinks without consulting me, another move I normally would have found a huge turn off, but with him just fanned the fanny flutter fires. I also greatly appreciated that he recalled what type of liquor I like from my Bumble profile.

We sat drinking and eating French fries, talking about work and life and travel until the bar closed, then we sat and drank and talked for another hour while the staff cleaned up and had a drink of their own, until they finally kicked us out when they were leaving too.

The Posh Portuguese was very upfront that he was in to me, while I failed miserably at playing it cool; blushing and laughing like a school girl getting asked to dance by the popular boy at homecoming.

We walked through the now dark streets of Lisbon for a while, drunk on our several rounds of cocktails and our great chemistry until I finally invited him back to my Airbnb for a night cap.

I made us drinks, while he wandered the apartment declaring how posh it was and asking how much I was getting suckered for.

When he finally stopped assessing the apartment, we sat on the couch and sipped our drinks until the tension couldn’t be held in any longer and we were like unsupervised teenagers in the backrow of the movie theater… that quickly progress to very grown activities that would get us arrested at the move theater. 

While the previous Londoner was certainly a sprint, the Posh Portuguese was no marathon, which he felt the need to discuss and explain was not his norm (especially after talking a big game after I told him about my previous tryst, which he had declared was “shameful” and “young boy shit”).

The Posh Portuguese headed home after our chat, with promises of a “better performance” the following night after a birthday party he was attending.

We touched base a couple of times the following day, and again when he was at the party.  As the night got later and his texts got harder to decipher, it was clear he wasn’t leaving the island (aka: Almada) to come to Lisbon that night. I wished him good night and assumed I would never hear from him again since he was leaving the next day.

But then I did.

I would receive random spicy texts when he was feeling naughty, or bored, or lonely, or all of the above. It was a fun virtual game to play across the ocean, and eventually across time zones at this continued well past I left Lisbon the first time.

He eventually started dating someone, and would complain to me about the woes of being “tied down” and how he wished he could find a “no fucks girl” like me in London (I DO give a fuck by the way…  it just selective). As that relationship seemed to progress, the random messages regressed, and I was glad he may have found someone.

I had a stop over in LHR a few months later and texted him to say “Hi” and that I was in London for a hot minute and as the stars be starring… he was in Lisbon and single, but leaving that night.

Our encounter was clearly mean to be brief… in every way.