Trevorama

Given that neither of us has any interest or inclination in romantic liaisons while we’re here. A and I were initially pleasantly surprised at the lack of male attention we attracted in Brazil. Emphatically not wanting to tar them all with the same brush, Brazilian men do have a reputation for being Lotharios. Perhaps the reputation is undeserved, we speculated optimistically in those early days – or perhaps we’re just not their bag? However, for some reason or other – either because we’re no longer bottle-white, or perhaps because we’re now on our own and out of the company of our Sao Paulo friends, we’re now getting hit on with increasing frequency, which is a bit of a hassle, as you think you’re just having a pleasant chat with someone, and two minutes later they’ve got the guns out.

We have observed that there seems to be a different etiquette in terms of (what I’ll generously term) courting here. Men actually form a physical queue in order to talk to girls – there seems to be an unspoken agreement between men that once you’ve had a go and been proved unsuccessful, you move aside to make way for the next one. We’ve actually had the situation where we’ve been talking to one bloke, only to have another tap him on the shoulder, and (assuming we can’t understand him) tell him he’s taken too long and would he please move aside so the next one can have a go. Perhaps in reaction to this environment, Brazilian men tend to go in for the kill with alarming swiftness – five minutes into their company they’re declaring love and asking if they can kiss you. All in all it on some evenings it can be fairly exhausting, as one becomes aware that, a bit like Zorro in one of those extended sword battles, as soon as you’ve dispensed with one, there’s going to be another one straight in behind him.

One bored night in Paraty, we stayed in our hotel room and watched a Brazilian dating show. The concept appeared to be that a selection of very very groomed women sit on stools in a line, and one after the other the host brings out a selection of men, who have about a minute to pitch to them all. At this point the girls all get asked in turn if they’ll take what’s on offer, which they mostly answer with a sneery ‘nao’ (occasionally quantified with a comment such as ‘he’s too short’). If one of them caves, (hedging her bets that the next one they bring out will be worse) then the two get paired off and sent off to sit on a sofa. This process is repeated until everyone is paired off – the danger for the girls being, if you turn down too many times at the beginning, you might just end up with the leftovers at the end. Occasionally, a siren goes off and the girl who’s currently in the spotlight has to get up and do sexy dancing under duress with the man currently on offer. Basically it’s a TV studio simulation of club nightlife. At the end, all the pairs slow dance with each other to Celine Dion, apart from any men who didn’t score, who have to dance on their own with stupid hats on and desperately try to convince the men in couples to swap with them, which they may do if they’ve since decided (during the sofa time) that they don’t like what they ended up with.

Anyhow, lacking the linguistic weaponry to parry away these assaults with any grace or aplomb, I feel a little like all I’m left with is the equivalent of a verbal club to disperse with them, which I feel disinclined to use, mainly because I still feel like I’m the visitor and everyone else is my host and I must be polite to them. My polite ‘thanks but no thanks’ in Portuguese get me nowhere. Nor is telling them you have a boyfriend in London (at this point I must stress that A's boyfriend in London seems to be a more effective deterent than mine, quite feasably because he actually exists - though I swear my imaginary one is getting realler by the day) As we have discovered, the stock response to that ripost is “but you don’t have a boyfriend in Brazil? So just don’t tell him about it!” Basically, the way they seem to see it, if he’s not in the room he’s irrelevant. We feel rather differently on this point, but the argument at that juncture becomes far too complex for my limited vocabulary.

I ask a Brazilian friend, Pedro, for help. What’s the magic phrase, I ask him, that gets rid of them without causing offence? “There is no such thing” he replies. How do the Brazilian women deal with it, I ask him. “The only way do get rid of them is to pointedly ignore them.” So, that rules out having a friendly chat with 50% of the humans in this country? Yes, according to Pedro. “Over here, ‘no’ doesn’t mean ‘no’, it means, ‘not now, try again in a bit’.” A disturbing sentiment for any post-feminist to hear. “You’re too much of a good prospect” he continues “Nice gringos, they’re thinking maybe they can fuck you, and then you’ll move on and they won’t have to deal with any consequences. So they’ve got absolutely nothing to lose by keeping trying.” Almost enough to send one running for the concrete knickers.

It often seems that the only defence against unwanted male attention seems to be to be in the company of men already. All in all it’s a pretty unsatisfactory situation but one which it’s very difficult to get out of. Plumping for the ones that are least likely to hit on us, we recently have frequently found ourselves in the company mainly of middle-aged ex-pats. For the most part this is a mutually agreeable situation, and we have genuinely enjoyed their company (maybe just because we are craving conversation in English with anyone other than each other). These guys seem to enjoy being in the company of two young twenty-somethings and keep insisting on paying for our dinner (which it must be said, we are never angling for). Happily for us they don’t expect they’re going to get anything other than conversation in return. Thus we find ourselves unwilling participants dancing the ancient dance of male patronage, the only consolation for the massive reduction in our normal independence being that at least we eating better for it.

Unfortunately (infelizmente) I fear that our only other option to get rid of the have-a-goes is to get ruder and be blunter. Tis a quandary, and essentially, none of this leaves me feeling very good about myself. But you have to laugh at it all. We’ve begun ascribing names to them all in order to reference them later – Winky Trev, Be Careful Trev, Favela Trev, Licky Trev (I just didn’t get out of the way quick enough on that one), Super Trev, Singy Trev – and have amassed a great little collection of middle-aged-ex-pat drawls to entertain each other with.