I was spending my summer visiting family in Portugal when my Brazilian ex boyfriend asked me to come visit him in Barcelona. We had a pretty crazy summer the year before, not expecting to fall in love, but we fell hard.
That first summer (2006), I was working at a bar above the beach when my friends introduced me to a very cute boy. They wrote in English on a piece of paper and had him say it out loud. He didn’t speak English. The words were “I fancy you”. When I repeated back what he said in Portuguese so he understood, he turned bright red! A couple days later his friend asked me out for him, and I said no. By the end of the game that day (the World Cup was happening in Germany and our bar covered all the games), he was begging me to go out with his primo (his cousin). So, I challenged him and said, “Ok, if he meets me at Bar Lotus down the street after my shift, I’ll consider it.”
I was actually kind of nervous walking to the bar after my shift, not knowing if he would be there. He was.
He looked super uncomfortable and out of his element. But, that started a summer romance where communication was key, because he didn’t speak English and my Português was rough. Fast forward to summer 2007, I had started seeing someone back home, but always wondered about my Brazilian guy. We had kept in touch over the year with conversations here and there, but when he asked me to come to Barcelona I was hesitant. I told the guy back home about him so he knew there might be an opportunity for closure, but it depended on me flying across Spain to get it. So...”FUCK IT, YES!”, I went.
It was the longest 11 days of my life. I was bored out of my mind, it took about 45 min to get into the city, and the most exciting thing that happened was when I was out alone in the city meeting with friends and trying to get back to his apt. The only reason I figured out where to go was from church bells leading my way! We had a night where we hashed everything out and I realized he was a liar. But I definitely got the closure I needed.
It only took me another FIVE YEARS to really get over him. But once I did, I realized I had used that love as a crutch, thinking nothing could get better than that first summer. But I was wrong. Real love is so different, so much deeper.
So “FUCK IT, YES!” has been a motto of mine for a long time. No regrets!