Dating in Spain
I was super reluctant to try the apps again because I wasn’t sure if I was ready to put myself back out there to possibly find love again. The past few years I’ve done a lot of therapy to heal from past traumas from childhood and romantic relationships. After my broken engagement, I had a series of flings in DC but I wasn’t taking any of them seriously and certainly didn’t allow myself to fall for anyone. My heart was closed for business. And in hindsight, I think a part of me knew subconsciously at that point I wasn’t meant to stay in DC so it didn’t make sense in getting tied down to anyone new.
One of the girls I met in the social groups I’m in told me one way to make new friends as well as practice my Spanish is to join the dating apps. She was from Germany and only in Mallorca for a short time.
As a side note — I’m slowly learning Mallorca is a very transient place, much like DC.
After careful consideration, I thought maybe I could be ready to meet men and possibly open up my heart again. Because if I’m being honest, I enjoy the romantic aspect of dating. It’s pure dopamine for my ADHD. This also coupled with the fact I’m a hopeless romantic in spite of all of my past relationships ending with heartache. But I’ve grown, I’ve learned, I’ve healed…as much as one can outside of relationship.
So I did it. And let me just say dating in Spain is so unbelievably different, in both good and bad ways. One thing I’ve realized is no matter how much therapy and healing I’ve done while I’ve been single, some wounds and traumas don’t actually arise until you start engaging in romance. It’s like ripping off a bandaid. There have been moments since dating again where I have absolutely found myself running and pushing someone away, when all it was, was simply a wound I hadn’t uncovered in therapy. According to my therapist, this is normal. And the only way to heal is to work through it, and if the relationship gets to be serious, make sure it’s with someone who can help you work through the trigger. Fun stuff.
At this point in the game; I’ve been on a good amount of dates. The emotional exhaustion of it all hasn’t changed. There’s still a good amount of weeding out to do. Another key difference dating the Spaniards is the heavy flirtation. I’m talking the stuff you write romance novels out of. I remember the first time I saw 365 Days on Netflix back in 2020. At the time I remember being completely infatuated by the main character. His sexy Italian accent, his dark haired beard, and tall muscular body made a part of me just melt like butter. In Mallorca, I’m surrounded by these kinds of men. And they are from all over the world. The voice messages I received from these guys are listened to on repeat. Some made me laugh, some made me swoon, and others made me use the translator. It’s a completely different experience. Also it has most definitely helped me with my Spanish.
Pedro.
My first in person date. If you want to call it that. It was more like a meeting. We met at the park near my apartment. When I matched with him, his picture was a tall bearded man with bleach blonde hair, long arms in a sports jersey and a dopey big grin. The second picture was of his legs and these bright red shoes...and nothing else. It made me laugh. The outfits definitely made more sense when he told me works as a personal trainer at one of the local gyms. When he matched with me he soon sent me a voice message. Pedro has a heavy Spanish accent and a fairly deep voice with a warm kindness behind it. He’s also 6'2'’. We chat for a bit then agree to meet at the park. I assumed we would walk around and maybe go get a drink. And per my usual self, I agree to meet him right after something else, which means I’m running 5 minutes behind. I’ve learned it’s ok to be a little late here, nobody’s in a hurry…unless you’re trying to catch a bus or a flight. It’s the American in me. Anyway, I tell him I’m going to be later and he says no worries, he will wait. He then starts to tell me that he’s nervous. I’m thinking to myself “You’re nervous???” Which in turn made me a nervous. I guess because I’m so used to meeting people at this point, meeting one more doesn’t bother me. I was fine, up until he said that. I walk over to the park and Pedro is sitting on the park bench in an Adidas sport suit. A red Adidas sport suit. He has dark brown hair pulled up into a small bun with the bottom half of his hair below it is trimmed. Full beard too. It was a look. A damn good look. I walk up to him and give him a hug. We sit down on the bench and just talk. We stayed on that park bench for an hour. I don’t know what I expected, but sitting there with him made me become so shy. Going into the date I was super confident but he was so much better looking in person and that sometimes makes me go into my shell. I know my worth, I know my beauty, but I also know this man is gorgeous. The conversation went really well and much better than I expected. He offered to walk me to whatever corner I was comfortable with since we just met. We walked to one of the corners near my place and we talked a bit more, then he said he was nervous again. Apparently he thought because I didn’t greet with him with the typical Spanish greeting of kissing on the cheeks that meant I didn’t want to depart with the cheek kissing. Ah yes, another cultural difference. Kissing on the cheeks. So I tell him it’s fine, you can kiss me on the cheeks. This 6 foot something man takes his warm hands and places them on my neck, gently pulls my face to his and kisses me on both cheeks. Even writing this I have to take a deep sigh. I walk home where I am greeted by my flatmate Jana. She asks about the meetup with Pedro. I was in a bit of a blissful state. I tell her it went much better than expected, but I don’t know if we would date, just become good friends and do language exchanges. This guy just seemed way out of my league. But we meet again. Same thing except this time we went for a coffee. He held my hand a few times while we sat at a cafe, but I ignorantly assumed he was just a touchy person and this was somehow platonic flirtation. Mostly because he kept referring to me as his “American friend”. I was like ok cool, we can be friends. I need friends, and he seemed like a good one. So our messages consisted of me referring to him as “friend” as well. Friends with Pedro.
The last time we saw each other we went for our usual walk. Only this time I suggested we walk down to the beach, so we begin to head that way. As we come across a paddle ball court, he stops and watches for a second. I stand next to him watching the players. Almost of our nowhere he turns to me and slowly wraps his long arms around my body. He takes his hands and slides them across my back in a gentle rubbing motion. His face leans down next to mine and his cheek briefly touches my face.
I freeze. Is this a Spanish thing? Do the Spaniards randomly hug their friends like this? If I was a computer in that moment I was seriously glitching. I awkwardly go to put my arms up to hug him back but just as quickly as he hugged me, he pulled away. Since I have zero control over my facial expressions, I must have had what I can only imagine to be a bewildered look on my face because he looks at me and begins to chuckle. He then starts to talk about the paddle players and we continue to walk towards the beach.
While we walk along the beach, he tells me he wants to take me up to this castle like place across the street from the water. On the way there we begin to talk about the differences in Spanish and English phrases. For context, he would always say to me in English before we meet “I am very motivated to see you.” It always made me giggle because we native English speakers will never say that phrase. But he works in a gym, so motivation is kind of his thing. I explain this to him by saying when you are getting ready to meet someone in English we will sometimes say “I’m excited to see you!”. He told me he doesn’t want to say that to me in Spanish because in Spanish when you tell someone you are “excited” to see them, it usually means something sexual. “I don’t want you to think I am trying to talk to you like that, in a sexual way.” he says. When he says this, it brings me to believe that again we are only friends. As we continue to walk up the steps to the spot, those words continue to bounce around in my head along with bewilderment from the random hug. Confusion is my middle name and I am capable of the best kind of over thinking. This scenario is the perfect breeding ground for it.
We walk up the steps to overlook the ocean and stand beside each other. The conversation was trailing off and suddenly he takes me in his arms again. He slowly places his hands on the sides of my neck pulling my face close to his. I feel his breath on my ears while he slowly pushes his body against mine. His hands move down my neck and onto my back. As he begins to rub my back, I can feel my body start to relax and slowly begin to melt into him. I realize in this moment why he was doing this.
He always would say to me “if you have a bad day, you tell me, I want to be there for you.” But because I’m hyper-independent, I always think I can handle it on my own so I never would tell him when I needed a shoulder to cry on. The week before he asked me how I was doing. I said I had a rough day before but the following day I was doing a little better. He became very serious with me and said “I told you, if you are having a bad day, you must tell me. I want to be next to you when you are hurting. C’mon girl. You must or I will be very upset if you don’t.”
A bit surprised to hear this but he gave me the reassurance that maybe it’s ok to let him help if I need it. I said to him in voice message “Ok, next time I will because I could have really used a hug. Not just any hug, a hug from someone taller than me. As a tall person, whenever I am upset and someone tries to hug and comfort me, nine time out of ten they are shorter than I am, so it will often feel like I am the one comforting them.”
Now these hugs were starting to make sense…or so I thought.
Once I understood the purpose behind these hugs, I simply allow myself to melt into his big arms. It also made me realize I hadn’t been held, like really held, since my ex-fiance, who was also well over six feet. And that was back in 2020. Man oh man do I miss big hugs.
Then something changed. Suddenly it went from a friendly hug to something else. He begins to rub my back and pull my face closer to his. I felt his breath in my ears and then feel his lips gently kissing my cheeks. Then his lips move down to my neck, ever so gently. My eyes opened real wide and I start to wonder “oh shit, Anna. Is this man gonna be your first Spanish kiss? Hell yeah bitch.” This man was melting me like butter and I enjoyed every second of it. However. At one point our lips were right in front of each other, I was waiting for him to lean in and kiss me, he pulled away. No kiss? This man is kissing my cheeks, neck, ears, but not my lips. What the hell Pedro. It was intense. He then pulls away after about three minutes of caressing my face and says we should stop or he won’t be able to walk me back home. I agree. I say to him “it feels like we did something really intimate in public.” He agrees and we laugh walking down the stairs.
That was the last time I saw Pedro. We kept in touch but never made plans to see each other again.
Armin.
Armin was interesting. His name reminded me of the American brand Arm & Hammer. A tall, lean, blonde hair and blue eyed German. Armin is a German investment banker who lives in Mallorca and Germany. Red flag. Easy way for someone to have two lives in two places. Before the date, he loved to send me photos of his gorgeous flat which had views of the ocean. Another red flag. The conversation went well, he asked a lot of questions. Very nice. But he would always say “yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah” after I would say something. Pretty annoying. Dealbreaker? Probably. But it gets “better”. We then proceed to start talking about recent travels and he tells me about his trip to Chernobyl. I think to myself, “why would anyone want to visit this post apocalyptic place?” He says, “do you want to see photos?”. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to see pictures. He then pulls out his phone and starts swiping across the photos. This kind of thing makes me nervous because you just never know what will pop up on the screen. He shows me all kind of photos from the former amusement park to then showing me selfies he took in a bathroom. A desecrated bathroom. I think to myself, “Why? Why smile in this place?”. And then he swipes across a photo of what looks like a baby’s arm across a toilet. *swipe*swipe*swipe* and then he goes back to the photo. It was in fact not a baby’s arm. He looked at the photo, then looked at me, I stared at the photo and said “hmmm” and said nothing else.
Why? Why? Why?
Honestly it wasn’t even that impressive. It was less an average. We move on to other photos and then I change the topic of conversation. Then quickly tell him I have to go home and feed my dog. Which was the truth, but also my excuse to leave this man and never look back. And I did exactly that.
Mirko.
Another German, but visiting Mallorca. He was a bit shorter than myself and looked exactly like he did in his photos, but was somehow less attractive in real life. Anyway, we meet for coffee. The conversation goes well up until we begin talking about kids. He asked me if I want children. I tell him no, kids aren’t for me. And he asked me why, and I list off all my reasons. I asked him how he felt about kids. He then tells me he has two girls. *Awkward* I then start back-peddling a little on my no kids comments and ask questions about his girls. I then act interested and ask for photos. But I knew this man wasn’t it. Doesn’t live in Mallorca and has two kids. Nope. But somehow our conversation continued on for another two hours. He then asks if he can walk me back to the main street where he can catch a cab and I can continue my walk home. I agree. We are walking along the water on the way back and then out of nowhere he begins asking me sexual questions. “How often do you masturbate?” “When was the last time you had sex?” “Would it bother you if I like to also have sex with men?” I couldn’t get to the main street fast enough.
It was an awkward goodbye with an awkward side hug. When I returned home, I received a message from him “Nice to meet you. You a nice lady”. I respond back “You a nice man.”
No more Germans for me thanks.
Sunny.
His profile said he was 36 years old and 6'2'’. Neither of those was true. He told me for our first date we would have breakfast and he would drive us to the beach. Upon meeting him I was annoyed. He was shorter than he said he was in his profile, which meant he was shorter than me and he most definitely was older than I. He was super flirtatious and was eager to buy me whatever I wanted. All the red flags. He owned his own construction business, so he kept taking all these phone calls from his workers on the job sites. He loved to show me pictures of the job sites. I think to myself…”I really want to go to the beach, but I also want to make this date miserable for him so he won’t ever want to see me again.” Is this a mature decision? Definitely not. But my desire to spend the day at the beach outweighed the bad. And it backfired on me. Another life lesson in the books.
So I think, how I can make this man never want to see me again? Well, I order the most greasy, most unhealthy breakfast. My stomach won’t take too well to this. He will regret taking me on a date later in the car ride. I send my live location to two friends so if anything happens they know where to find me. Oh the joys of being a woman and always having to consider our safety.
Anyway, he tells me he is taking me to the furthest beach on the island, which is almost an hour away. He talks about himself the entire time and doesn’t ask me a single question about myself. All I keep thinking about is what is to come later. I laugh at his stupid jokes, pretend to understand what he is saying because he has a thick accent (he is from Pakistan).
We arrive at a beautiful beach and actually have a nice time. But I was not attracted to him at all. We stay for a few hours then I tell him I need to get home so I can walk my dog. On the way home, my tummy starts to grumble. “Here we go”, I think to myself. Greasy food will produce the most horrible farts, so they start to come out and loudly, might I add. I act innocent and say “omg I’m so sorry, it must have been something I ate.” I press the button to roll the window and nothing happens. He tells me the the windows don’t work in his car. Oh fuck… Didn’t think this part through did you, Anna?
In his middle eastern accent he says, “oh my god, it burns my nose”.
I am secretly dying from laughter on the inside but keep my composure somehow. I just continue to play dumb and apologize. I basically dutch-ovened myself and this asshole. Never again will I do this. From now on, first dates are only coffee dates to avoid this scenario ever again.
A.
A and I started talking back in March. Immediately we had a connection, despite the language barrier. He was born and raised in Mallorca and is four years younger than myself. We share the same sense of humor, the same values, even some of the same traumas. And I found him super attractive. He has an amazing smile and I love his laugh so much. We eventually made it official after months of “talking”. I fell in love with this man. He is patient and kind. And he makes me laugh my ass off. He was my first Spanish kiss. And my first Spanish love. He revealed parts of myself that needed to be worked on as a partner and was kind and patient to help me through it. We shared wonderful experiences together and learned a lot from each other.
But two days ago we decided it was not a good time for him to be in a relationship. It was literally the case of the right person, but the wrong time. I won’t divulge any of the private details here as to why we decided this, but we both agreed it was the right decision. We have agreed to be friends and support each other, whatever that may look like. As weird as it is to say, it was a beautiful and precious breakup. We cried, we hugged, we kissed, and said we love each other. And then made each other laugh. I don’t think either of us have ever had a healthy breakup. It is something I will always be grateful for.
The last two days I have woken up with what I call heartbreak hangover. Where you wake up with immense sadness and are hit in the face with reality that your favorite person isn’t in your life the way you want them to be. I’ve cried a lot these days, so much that even my dog senses my heartbreak. He loved A. And he knows we aren’t together now. He hasn’t eaten his food in two days.
While I know the pain is temporary and the hurt will heal, right now it just sucks. I know I will be okay and I will find love again. And this writing is part of my healing. It was a fun short summer romance, one I will always remember.
