In Belize, I have many boyfriends. It helps to have a boyfriend when you're traveling alone, because men like to say hello. Hey, Snow White in Belize City. Look at those red lips in Caye Caulker. My favorite: You like to read, huh? in Cayo. (At least this time, unlike last, I was not propositioned by a teenage boy. "Ay, mami," he'd said while cruising by on his bike. "Yes," I thought. "I'm old enough to be your mommy.")
In almost every conversation, a man asks where my husband is. No husband? Boyfriend, then? Yes, boyfriend, I say. Depending on who's asking, he's either waiting for me in the States or back at the guest house. Sometimes he is a scientist, other times he's an artist; these details shift for no reason at all. He is always possessive of me, though, and I can't be gone too long or he worries about where I am. Of course, no such gent exists -- and if he did, he would certainly not be the kind of stifling person I'd date -- but my "boyfriend" helps steer the conversation away from whether a drink can be purchased for me tonight.
(For what it's worth, the attention isn't about me. It would happen to any solo lady. I feel the need to say this so you don't think I'm egomaniacal.)
In San Ignacio, the lies became a little lighter because I roomed with two boys. Will had sat next to me on the plane down from Houston, and oddly enough, we ran into each other at the Belize Zoo. He, his friend Brian, and yours truly rode a very hot, very crowded bus to San Ignacio where most rooms were sold out. When we found a room with three beds for $100 BZ, we took it. So when this mildly sketchy guy kept hitting on me last night -- asking me three times if I was traveling with friends -- it was comforting to truthfully say that two guys were in my room upstairs.
And then, just as I told Mr. Can't-Take-a-Hint that it was strange that it was unlike my Belizean friend to be late, up walks Louis looking exactly the same. "Your hair is longer, Annie," he said. I don't know why this simple statement was so comforting, but it was. (FYI, he always calls me by my name, which is nice.) Louis had spent the day studying, I'd spent it spelunking, and we finished it with milkshakes. How wholesome, I joked, because it was.
In almost every conversation, a man asks where my husband is. No husband? Boyfriend, then? Yes, boyfriend, I say. Depending on who's asking, he's either waiting for me in the States or back at the guest house. Sometimes he is a scientist, other times he's an artist; these details shift for no reason at all. He is always possessive of me, though, and I can't be gone too long or he worries about where I am. Of course, no such gent exists -- and if he did, he would certainly not be the kind of stifling person I'd date -- but my "boyfriend" helps steer the conversation away from whether a drink can be purchased for me tonight.
(For what it's worth, the attention isn't about me. It would happen to any solo lady. I feel the need to say this so you don't think I'm egomaniacal.)
In San Ignacio, the lies became a little lighter because I roomed with two boys. Will had sat next to me on the plane down from Houston, and oddly enough, we ran into each other at the Belize Zoo. He, his friend Brian, and yours truly rode a very hot, very crowded bus to San Ignacio where most rooms were sold out. When we found a room with three beds for $100 BZ, we took it. So when this mildly sketchy guy kept hitting on me last night -- asking me three times if I was traveling with friends -- it was comforting to truthfully say that two guys were in my room upstairs.
And then, just as I told Mr. Can't-Take-a-Hint that it was strange that it was unlike my Belizean friend to be late, up walks Louis looking exactly the same. "Your hair is longer, Annie," he said. I don't know why this simple statement was so comforting, but it was. (FYI, he always calls me by my name, which is nice.) Louis had spent the day studying, I'd spent it spelunking, and we finished it with milkshakes. How wholesome, I joked, because it was.
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