Atrapada

I never wanted to be one of those assholes who blogs about their shitty dates. This is why I decided to avoid shitty dates and the temptation to write about by getting engaged to the only person I ever seriously dated.

That being said, here is the tale of my crappy“date” with an unemployed truck driver/drug addict.

Technically, and thankfully, I haven't been going on real dates, but rather a series of blind meet-ups with Spanish-speakers under the guise of trying to improve my Spanish (which actually needs a lot of work) while I desperately try to make any a friend.

Oddly enough, for every one response from a guy, I’ve received 10 messages from girls my age. In my current bizarro world, I always hope these girls will have a cool boyfriend who is just like me. But I don't think writing "guys only" in my Loquo posting sends the right message. I also believe it might be too frank to write: "Looking for a dude who enjoys smoking, eating their weight in patatas bravas, and having a serious discussion about Dani Alves' neck beard."

Yet my bevy of intercambios has taught me many Spanish words and introduced me to some cool people. Once I got over my heartbreak, I quickly learned that Pilar is super nice and full of interesting stories. I met a Peruvian who learned to drive in Rome and as a result of which, had to take driving courses in Barcelona to learn how to drive like a civilized human being. I went to a fancy cafe with a woman who was so attractive that it made me uncomfortable and I went to another cafe with another girl who wasn't quite as mind-bogglingly pretty. Tragically neither of these girls had cool boyfriends.

But my luck of exchanging languagues with kind, normal folk ran out with a man named Luis, who let me know he was bat-shit crazy from the moment he yelled at me for being three minutes late.

As the Catalan native walked me to some shitty café – the equivalent of me taking a visitor in New York to the Red Lobster on 42nd Street – he stopped dead in his tracks. Before I could ask what was going on, he bolted 15 feet away to snatch up a dropped pack of cigarettes. Then he returned, entirely too satisfied and offered me a smoke from his new-found pack, which I politely declined.

Once we sat down, he seamlessly transitioned from the fact that he used to be a truck driver to, naturally, his movie idea.

He introduced me to the main characters: Armando who owns a semi truck, and Lucas, who owns a caged tiger. The he told me that Armando was an “Ass guy,” before I could teach him that “Ass guy” means something different then his intended meaning that Armando was a bad person.

Then the found-cigarette bliss vanished from his face as he turned stone-cold solemn as he explained that Armando murdered the mother of two kids, even worse one of the kids was autistic.

Fast forward through 20 bizarre minutes of my life and the orphaned kids are trapped in a boarded up shack with the tiger, because Ass Guy Armando stole Lucas' tiger trailer and freed the tiger in the shack.

Throughout the entire story, Luis would burst up laughing over nothing at all. Better yet any time he’d teach me a Spanish word, he call himself the “best teacher in the world” or “sensei” or "maestro." Forty five minutes into our painfully long session, I theorized hat Luis' lunacy might have something to do with the fact that his pinky fingernail was a half inch longer than rest of his nails.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, as I made up an excuse why I had to leave asap, my master sensei taught me the term “se piro,” which more or less means to sneak out.

And just before I was able to get the fuck away from Luis, he confessed that this was not actually a movie he made up, but instead a film he saw on TV last night.