Last stop: Bristol

Hi! It’s been a while! Work has been CRAAAAZY lately. I’m sorry we didn’t talk on Christmas or Valentine’s day, but I’ve had plenty of time to do some thinking over many things. All of that self-reflection, along with some Insta stories from December 2017 got me thinking about a time when a lot of things and feelings happened in a very short period of time. So doing a post-mortem 3-4 years later seemed like the perfect time frame to get back to this. That year I traveled to Europe to meet my brother in Germany for Christmas and New Year. He was living in Heidelberg at the time, and I decided a short Euro trip with three destinations would be a great vacation. After Germany, I would stay a few days in Madrid, Spain. But before I got to any of that, there was going to be a first stop at Bristol, UK. I will tell you all about that trip, and every stop will have it’s own not-so-short story. Today we will start with Bristol.  

For some context, I lived in Bristol for a while between 2013 and 2014 at a time when I decided I wanted to get a master’s degree in social Anthropology. I know, don’t even make that face. No, I am not crazy or a hippie; I am truly fascinated by human interaction, social constructs, culture, and all that stuff. Plus, Social Anthropology has many real-life/ real-job applications that I am not going to discuss right now.

Anyway, so I was enjoying my late 20’s in Bristol, getting a second chance at student life. Which, if you ever get a chance to do, definitely take it. You’ll find you enjoy going to school a lot more after a few years of trying to be a full-time adult. Trust me on that one.  

During that time, I met a few guys, one of them was a Welsh guy. We’ll call him Ted. I met Ted on Bumble (or Tinder, whatever) and we dated for around 9 months. Ted was the kind of guy that checked all my boxes. He was smart, hardworking, he was cute and tall; he had a dark sense of humor and would laugh at my silly jokes. He enjoyed going out occasionally for drinks and was not shy to dance to good music. He liked nice restaurants and trying all the new food from all over the world that became available in town. He was well travelled and educated. He even lived alone and was very neat and clean for a guy who lives by himself in his 20’s.  Most importantly, he liked me, even when I gained weight from all that Cadbury and fish and chips and felt gross (yes, I struggle with my self-image sometimes too.) He was always one to pick me up and drive me back home (I know, like one of those old school gentlemen). He was a much better cook than me and liked to cook for me every now and then.  He dressed well and had great taste for gifts. He was always welcoming and protective of me in a way that was not possessive or overbearing. He knew I didn’t NEED to be taken care of, but still cared for me and somehow always made me feel protected around him.  We were respectful of each other’s time and space. He was busy with work; I was busy getting a degree while working part-time at a shop, but we also still found time to hang with my friends and do our own thing without that being any issue.

 (Oh, and one final thing, he didn’t have any tattoos. Sorry, I know I’m very old fashioned, but I really don’t like tattoos and these days it is a true miracle to find guys with virgin skin. This needed to be said.)

So you might be thinking, if this guy was so perfect how come you are not married to him or something? Well, simple: because he didn’t ask me to. LOL! When the time came where my student visa was soon to expire and I had to decide if I was to try to stay longer and pursue a more serious relationship with him, no further words or signs of commitment came from him. *hears crickets in the background*

Knowing I wouldn’t waste more time chasing a guy ever again (see last blog post), I just decided to make a peaceful retreat. I cannot say I was heartbroken because I wasn’t. I don’t think I was even in love at that point; I was certainly somewhere on that path, but not quite there yet. I think I made it such a rational decision that he was everything I needed, that I forgot to feel …like really allow myself to feel. I never told him straight up any of this (which now I wonder if it might have been a mistake), but I figured no further effort was worth making since I had already decided to go back home to Mexico.

Somehow, through all of that, we remained friends. I recognized that there were always good intentions from both our ends and no harm had been done. A few months passed and it was time for me to go to Bristol for my graduation and since my family wouldn’t be able to travel for the event, I invited him and my good friend Ale from Chile (who had been a life saver/roommate/BFF, more on her soon!). And that’s how the tradition to go back to Bristol every other year began.

Fast forward to December 2017. I needed to get myself to Europe, so I could get to Germany on time for Christmas. Cheapest option I found was a round flight to London. It immediately seemed like a good idea to make a strategic one week stop at Bristol; visit friends, and have some fun. By then, staying at Ted’s place for a few days was kind of a given for every visit. And even though, we didn’t really talk much while we are apart, every visit became a little like having a genie boyfriend in a bottle. The days over there would go something like this: I would go out during the day, just walking around the city that still feels like home, seeing friends, sitting by the river. Then I would come back home in the afternoons to work because I was working remotely central US/Mexico hours. (Did you think I got like a month off from work? HA!)  He would get home and we would either go out for dinner or he would cook something. We would cuddle and watch tv for a while, then we would improvise a puppet show of some sort (Reference: Bridget Jones Baby to know what I’m talking about) and go to bed. I think it was a Friday night when he came to the pub with me and my friends. Gosh, I almost forgot to mention he even got along with my friends!  Then the following night I met with some other friends and I ended up not getting back to Ted’s house until the next morning. That next day he gave me a cold look but didn’t ask any questions. Regardless, I told him I had stayed over at my friend’s Ale (from Chile). I lied. That night I also met Manu (Manuel), a Spanish friend (-ish) and it got really late and I didn’t want to walk back by myself.

Quick side story, Ted and Manu actually met once for what was one of the most awkward moments in my life. I now laugh about it, but I swear right then I was ready to jump in the Avon river and drown if that would have made me disappear. For a short while I may have been… sort of dating both guys simultaneously, and then, OF COURSE, one day I ran into Manu when I was on a date with Ted. I calmly (#NOT) introduced them both as friends, and then things escalated quickly and all of a sudden, they started a discussion about which of them had a better carry-on luggage for me to borrow for my upcoming Spring break trip to Mallorca. I ended up taking both bags from them, but then I took Manu’s bag on the trip. What?! I mean that one had wheels! Anyway, big oopsy! “Pueblo chico, infierno grande”, is a saying we have in Mexico, which translates “small town, big hell”.  In my defense, I had just met both of them around the same time, there was nothing serious between neither of them, and I’m pretty sure they were also seeing other people at the time. I also stopped dating Manu after that horrific incident; in other words, that’s when I chose Ted…just not his carry-on bag.

So back to the original story. I did see Manu, but nothing happened. I swear! Just keep him in mind because he will come up again later during this trip.

Sadly, it was shortly time for me to leave on to my next stop. After a few days of cuddles, laughs, puppet shows, nights and mornings together, Ted dropped me off at the airport so I could to take a flight to Frankfurt to meet my brother. We hugged like friends do and said our good-byes without much emotion. And like nothing had happened, the genie boyfriend was back in the bottle and I didn’t even glance back or felt the slightest sorrow for “leaving Bristol on a jet plane” …once again. I know partially why that was. My eyes and my interest were now set somewhere else in Madrid, a story for which you will have to stay tuned…

I saw Ted again last year. I went on one of my every-other-year Bristol tours. Except this time I didn’t stay at his place, mostly because I was traveling with my friend Laura. I did meet him one night for dinner. It was nice “catching up” for a while. A few months after that trip he became a dad of a little baby girl. (No, I’m not the mother. Phew, that was close!) Last I heard from him, he’s still single, but I haven’t talked much with him since he gave me the news. I am unsure if or how the fact that he now has a kid changes things between us, but somewhere my sixth sense tells me that this story might have come to an end for good. Which is why I guess; I’m coming back to reflect on it. I think I have finally allowed myself to remember and feel what I probably should have felt years ago. Great timing by the way! But I do promise you this; if I ever download Bumble again, this will be my new bio: “Expect emotional response/reaction 3-4  years after first kiss.”  #noregrets