Portugal Joe

Modern dating in Lisbon Portugal is not for the princess girlie because here most of the men are princesses. The first guy I dated said that his friends call him Paris, like Paris Hilton, because he can be a bit of a diva…

Okay slay queen. 

I have been on several dates with standard Portuguese men, a Joao, a Nuno, a Miguel, an Andre, a Daniel and a Tiago. I am collecting data on these men and it’s not looking good. But let's start with the positives: Daniel is my fave, he has a genuine good vibe and energy around him. He’s magnetic and also a massive flirt, which is giving fuck boy. We don’t name names here, so I will leave it at that. All these guys in this blog are Portugal Joes…or maybe I should say Portugal ‘Joaos’

The first Portugal Joe was a real sweetheart, he helped me with some bureaucratic shit by taking me to a government building and being my translator. I wanted to know if I could get a stall at Feira da Ladra to sell my art. Turns out I can, there’s just a bit of a wait. After that we got a coffee and then he was off to sort his day out. Awe, that was so helpful of him. 

This Portugal Joe also has a young daughter, I want to say she was 7 or 8. During our third date he was on a video call with her and his baby mama for 45mins. It was cute for the first 5 mins but after 25mins I was annoyed. Helllooo, I’m still here. At 30mins I told him that I was ordering an Uber to go home. That’s when he started wrapping it up. So I made my way to the door and waited outside, I wasn’t into it. I decided I didn’t want to date anyone with children. 

Second Portugal Joe was a real weirdo but had a very impressive resume, to say the least. We went on two dates before he was off to San Francisco California for his job in tech. At that time I was flying to Canada to tattoo. He offered to fly me out to California to stay with him when I was done tattooing in Canada. I really considered it because I hadn’t been to San Fran before. But thinking about all the times I have been flown out by a man, I couldn’t do it anymore. I said “no, that is way too much effort on my end.”

We were staying in touch over instagram and he sent me a meme/cartoon thing. It’s literally the first private message he sends me outside of fire emojis on my photos. It is the weirdest joke I have ever seen. He sends the meme along with the big looking eyes emoji. It was giving PDF, creeper vibes and I was like…what the fuck is this? I sent it to my friend. She said the same thing. I told him that I didn’t get the joke. He ignored that. Later on he sent something else less offensive..I didn’t react.  If you want to see a screenshot of the PDF joke he sent along with my friend’s response you can subscribe to Former Lover Girls here. 

Even though I thought it was a weird joke, I still went on another date with him because he is ‘smart’ ‘successful’ ‘put together’ ‘great career’ ‘cute’ ‘great communicator’…He looks good on paper but has a terrible sense of humour. Red flag.

At that date he made another super weird PDF joke and I left the moment I finished eating. The rest of the meal I sat there thinking in my head, am I imagining this? This is crazy. I said the meal wasn't sitting right with me and I left. There was a part of me where I almost wanted to meet up with him again to tell him that he is super fucking weird but then I thought no, he will continue to out himself with his weird comments. 

Third Portugal Joe had the worst attitude. We went on a date when I was in Lisbon, we went out for Mexican food. On the date he told me that he didn't like Mexican food  but wanted to make me happy. The first red flag is not liking Mexican food. A week after that date he was going on vacation for a month. At that time I was trying to move out of Lisbon so we didn't go on a second date for months. We stayed in touch over social media. He helped me look for an apartment by looking up apartments in his area; glad I didn't move anywhere near him.

On our second date we went out for dinner to a traditional Portuguese restaurant. It was delicious and he deboned my fish for me. I love it when men do that. He dropped me off at home and we shared a kiss. It was nice. He said he would love to cook for me one day. So he did. He made me salmon fillets at his house. After dinner he asked if I wanted to watch a movie and I said ‘ no, I will fall asleep if that happens, let's just watch a TV show’. He really wants to make out…we started kissing and making out…(more available on Former Lover Girls)

He drives me home after that date, before I get into the car I ask him to open my door. This guy drives a Tesla, and I keep pretending I don't know how to open the door so he can open it for me. I think I am doing a cute bit and he thinks I am being a bimbo princess. His underground parking is very echo-y and loud so my laughter echoes. He is already in the car…he says, are you serious?! I am giggling and laughing thinking he will come around, open my door and kiss me, nope…instead he gets so mad.

I was like dude it's not that big of a deal. 

He gets out and walks around the car, he opens the door for me talking to himself in Portuguese in an aggressive tone, he slams the door shut, it echoes throughout the entire underground. I am taken aback. He starts ranting, ’I can't believe it. Am I going out with some kinda Polish or Russian girl??’ I let him rant because this was very telling behaviour. 

After driving for five minutes in awkward silence I tried to bring humour to the situation. I said, you’re being such an aquarius right now. That made him angrier. He asked his Tesla robot to tell us some religious story about these kids who saw a burning bush and the kids got prophecies and blah blah blah. Somehow he was trying to say that this burning bush religious story is the same as astrology…astrology is the bullshit burning bush blah blah blah. I don’t care about his hot take.

In my head I thought, you have no idea what you are talking about. I zoned out. He drops me off and has the audacity to try and get a kiss. lolz Ya, no bud. BUHBYE. That was a Thursday.

Sunday rolls around. I am at the gym, I get a text from this angry Portugal Joe and he says, missing something? I said I dunnooo ... He told me I left my eyeglasses at his house. Damn. I only use them at night; I guess I haven't been out that much. I asked him if he would drive them to me. He said he would have lunch at his parents place and could drop them off in about two hours.

I was going to go to the beach that day but I decided against it and waited at home for him instead. I spent the day cleaning my apartment, two hours go by, my house is very clean, I text “what is your eta? I have to run to the grocery store”. He says he would be at mine in 15mins. I stay at home. He texts, “shit I left your glasses at my home”. I say “oh no! How long will it take you?”

He doesn't respond for another 30mins. I am still at home. I was like fuck it I will go grocery shopping and when he says he’s on his way I will go back home. I go grocery shopping and come back and I still don't hear from him. 

I say, “Hello? What time are you coming by?”

He says he's not, he has to pack for his trip because he is leaving the following day. I say, wait you are going away and not bringing me my glasses? He said I could go there and pick them up if I wanted (I don't drive and the bus would take 45mins vs his 15min drive). 

Or he said he could drop them off on Friday. I agreed to that because I didn't have plans until Saturday anyways. 

Friday rolls around, I text, “I am around your area I can come pick up my glasses if you're home.” He’s not, he is at his parents place (again?). He said he would be back tomorrow (Saturday)…greaattt.

The next day I ask the same boring question, when can you drop my glasses off? I don't hear from him so I decide that this guy literally doesn't want to see me if he's not going to make a plan to bring me my glasses. 

I followed up with the idea of sending an Uber car to pick up my glasses. I wish I had thought of that a week ago. He responds to that text within minutes. I won't be home until after 7pm. 

UGH. I was supposed to be out by then. 

We arranged to have an Uber delivery person pick up my glasses on Sunday. He sends me his address and it is somehow wrong..? I call him to say that the driver is there and I can hear him running down the street annoyed that I gave the wrong address…you mean the one I literally copied and pasted from our message? Okay. I got my glasses from the Uber delivery service and never spoke to that guy again.

THEN the final boss of Portuguese men is from my story Viral Joe. That was the last Portuguese man I have been in contact with as of right this blog.

I did remember one last crazy story about a guy I matched with on Hinge…who I never met in person.

There was a short time that I had my social media information on my Hinge profile. Bad idea, never again. On Hinge you can’t scroll forever and chat with everyone. Once you match with someone you can only talk to them and seven other matches. So I figured if people were really interested they would follow me on Insta (yay more followers) and we could chat there. 

On Hinge, once your messages are full (8 messages max) you have to message everyone to clear your message history or delete people. I was chatting with a guy on Hinge who had (assumingly) a great vibe: he had dreads, surfed, and had a cute face. He was a surf instructor and we tried to make plans to meet but he could never commit to anything (classic). So eventually I said F it and deleted him from Hinge to chat with other people who knew how to make plans. 

That evening I was on instagram and I made an instagram story calling myself an idiot for something related to cooking, I don't remember. And this fake hippie Portugal Joe with the dreads messages me on instagram and completely loses his shit. 

I WISH I HAD THE SCREENSHOTS OF THESE MESSAGES. 

I looked to see if I sent screenshots to any friends because it was so outrageous but I couldn’t find anything. This is why I started this blog, for the receipts! Men can be so insane. A lot of them do not know how to deal with their emotions. It is embarrassing. Look at how wild all these stories have been. 

Anyways, this fucking guy starts insulting me in my DM’s on Instagram. He says something like agreeing with the fact that I am an idiot because I missed out on my chance to date him. He said something like, all you women are the same. You know the standard male dissing - “you’re not even hot”. 

I message him back kindly…something like, oh hey I didn’t realize you followed me on here (Instagram). We could have been talking on here but you decided to go talk shit and be weird. 

He messages back with a lot of nonsensical shit but the only thing that stuck out to me the most was when he said: I hope you enjoy all the fast food you get from using men.

Like what? No one is taking me out for fast food, hunnieeee.

Months later I bump into him, he was teaching surf lessons at the school I go to. I saw him in person and he has Napoleon syndrome. This tiny man with his bad temper, how embarrassing. I could tell he was checking me out and I was like, absolutely not. This town is too small...you do have to be careful.

IN conclusion, the data has been collected, it’s not looking great for Portuguese men.