Journalism is all about doing things that are downright rude: eavesdropping on other people’s conversations, spilling secrets that are supposed to stay hidden, coaxing people to betray their friends, and airing what shouldn’t be aired about them. It’s showing up late to dinner, stepping away mid-meal to take a phone call, jotting notes while someone’s pouring their heart out over coffee, exposing the flaws and crimes of others — especially politicians — and publicly handling what good manners say you should handle privately.
I can’t help but think that, 20 years ago, this woman might’ve been one of those four twentysomethings at the other table.
Back when I briefly dabbled in investigative journalism, I’d visit the strangest places to overhear conversations. That’s how I learned about infidelities, illegal dealings, influence peddling, and just how outrageously dishonest public officials can be when they think no one’s listening. Those hurried scribbles in my notebook often turned into juicy scoops about the stinking backrooms of politics.
Now that I’m older, I still sit in terraces and bars, blending into the background — not to uncover corruption anymore, but to paint little slices of life in columns that won’t go down in history, though with a bit of luck, they might entertain someone momentarily.
Today, I’m writing from my vacation spot, on one of those terraces where locals mix with tourists. It’s a stop along the Camino de Santiago, so the crowd is a vibrant mix of sunburned skin, accents, languages, and dreams. Next to me, four twentysomething women, looking like they had a wild night, are having breakfast in the sun and sharing last night’s secrets.
With great enthusiasm, they spend their time stabbing absent friends in the back. One of them, the only one who doesn’t look like she just walked out of a Bukele-style prison, confesses she wants to find love. But her three friends are dead set on convincing her to forget love and focus on sex, which, according to them, is what Netflix has reduced love to. Apparently, she’s into a guy who the others snigger at because his big passion is art history.
In a twist so typical of young women — especially 20-year-olds — the girl goes from defending her romantic, intellectual crush to laughing at him, saying she couldn’t handle Sundays spent talking about the fall of the Roman Empire. Then her friends flip, painting a rosy picture: “Think about it, strolling through Madrid with him would be amazing — he’d explain the meaning behind all the statues, and on Saturday mornings, instead of being hungover, he’d take you to explore the Prado.” She’s being sarcastic, and they all burst into a chorus of laughter.
I think about the guy. Twenty years old. From what they say, he must be good-looking. He’s not into partying, not into drinking, and from what I gather, he’s not crazy about the whole go-out-hook-up-sleep-around-every-day thing. “Maybe he’s still a virgin,” says the one who, by the age of 20, looks like she’s racked up more bedroom miles than all ten Formula 1 Grand Prix tracks combined. They all laugh. I’m not shocked anymore, but I have to suppress a wave of nausea thinking about the guy. Tonight, the most normal one in the group will confess her feelings to him because, deep down, she’s in love with him, even if she enjoys making dumb jokes about his personality and his love for art — which, let’s be honest, is what all four of them secretly find most attractive but won’t admit.
I want to meet this kid and hand him a giant red flag with a picture of his four “friends.”
A bit further away, I see an older couple having breakfast with a stunning woman in her thirties, who’s distraught because she lost her job and feels guilty being on vacation when she should be job-hunting. “I have no apartment, no job, and no partner,” she laments, “and I’m already at the age to settle down.” I look at her despair, and her style screams someone who, not long ago, was on top of the world, probably with a line of guys at her feet, maybe the queen of her department at her old job. A life of luxury and frivolity. The sexy tattoos all over her body confirm my snap judgment. And now, it’s all come crashing down.
I can’t help but think that, 20 years ago, this woman might’ve been one of those four twentysomethings at the other table, laughing at the art history-loving guy because he didn’t care for nightlife or chasing hookups. I have no proof, but I’d bet she turned down her own intellectual twentysomething back then, thinking life was a mix of Beverly Hills 90210 and Sex and the City. I feel bad for her, I’ll admit. But she got what she went after. That said, if she keeps looking at me like that, I might ask her out to dinner — unless her dad, who weighs 500 pounds and looks like he eats human flesh for breakfast, keeps staring at me like a serial killer. If my large future brother-in-law kills me for love, just remember I loved you all.
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