landing

The incident I'm recording here today occurred in June 2023, and ever since, I've wanted to immortalize it through a personal written confession. The main reason is that over time, the sordid details of this anecdote are becoming blurry, and I've made it my life's mission not to forget the good laughs this event provided.

I was on a girls' trip with my cousin, Mariana, and my friend, Rachel, enjoying the São Paulo diaspora to Rio de Janeiro during the Corpus Christi holiday. It was a great trip, the weather was divine, and many acquaintances were in the city, including our dear friend Nicolas. To crown this enterprise, on the last night, we decided to go out for a night in Botafogo, and influenced by my companions, I decided to invite a guy to join us.

To better understand the decision-making links I took, we need to teleport back to the bittersweet year of 2021. I was in Rio with my friend Mari, also on our last night, doing a pub crawl that was going from bad to worse. In an act of desperation that was also an attempt to save the night, I told her: "I'm going to open Tinder and the first person I match with, we're going to invite out!", which led me to match with the guy in question. It ended up going nowhere, and he became dormant among my Instagram followers, but he became my only possible contact in the wonderful city.

Back in 2023, I decided, after two years, to ask him out. He would meet the four of us there in Botafogo. I was very nervous because I always HATED blind dates, and despite having been on Bumble and Tinder, this was my first date indirectly or directly provided by a dating app (the first of two!). Before heading to the bar, we stopped to meet Nicolas at the house he was staying at, where upon arrival we were greeted by a much older diva who kept flirting with the three of us girls. We got there, drank some wine, and everything was fun until... I broke a glass. That's always a demoralizing moment, so I was mortified and started apologizing. The diva said it was no problem, and that breaking a glass was a great thing (!), as it signified a release of accumulated energy. In this case, I think it was, in fact, a bad omen.

We continued our night and went to a bar called "Calma", where my date would meet us. I was already slightly tipsy, but I started drinking even more because I was nervous about the date. What if he's ugly? What if he has nothing in common with me? My hands were sweating cold just thinking about the awkward moment of his arrival, and with that, the Negronis kept flowing into my bloodstream. After about 40 minutes, he arrived, and thank God the ice broke quickly. Being accompanied by dear friends made the situation less distressing.

He was very calm, and as the night went on, everything went well. The five of us were having fun and talking, going from one bar to another, and naturally, I got more and more drunk. I must have had about three Negronis, which for me is almost a death sentence, until the moment I started to stumble. At that point, we went back to Calma, and I had the brilliant idea of having one more drink. My friend Rachel confessed that at that moment she turned to my companion and said: "Clara is falling all over people... Take care of her...", to which he replied: "Oh, okay!", and we both headed inside the bar, while Rachel, Mariana, and Nicolas waited outside.

In the blink of an eye... It happened. There was a tiny step at the entrance of the bar... But far from harmless. I was wearing Dr. Martens platform boots which probably required higher steps when crossing stairs, which I couldn't process at the time. In a few seconds, the friction of the front of the platform with the step (that damned step that served NO purpose) opened the doors to my runway. And I took off.

The bar was a corridor, and at that moment, it was empty. Empty so I could perform in total freedom. No obstacles. I started to fall, right at the very beginning of the bar. My fall was so long that I remember thinking as it happened: "It's not POSSIBLE that this is happening to me." The act was so majestic that I remember my body being 100% in the air. And then the landing began. I took off, flew, and landed, a performance in three acts so complete that it even seemed to last more than a whole minute. What started at the entrance, ended at the end of the bar, because besides falling, I stumbled for meters until choosing where to park. You know when you fall but don't accept the fall? So you start to stumble and everything gets 10x worse? I didn't accept my fate, but God had already made his plans.

To this day, I can't believe how I didn't get hurt, because the impact on that concrete floor was so abrupt that I could easily have broken my arm or cut my head. There on the floor, I did everything to get up as if nothing had happened, but I was so stunned that it felt like I had just recovered from a fever dream. And there went my date to the rescue. As he rushed to help me up, he started to GUFFAW, as did my shocked friends who watched everything from the sidelines. They confessed later that they had to compose themselves to check if I was okay.

I don't remember exactly if I was laughing too, but I obviously tried to disguise and downplay the matter. Mariana, Rachel, and Nicolas arrived to see if I was all right, and then another guy approached me asking questions, wanting to know if everything was okay, a fact that deeply irritated me, because in my head he was just an intrusive person wanting a share in my show. I lost my temper and spoke extremely rudely, saying yes, everything was fine, that I was laughing so clearly everything was fine and that there were already four people helping me, as if that wasn't enough. My friends were embarrassed by my rudeness, as was the man who replied "Excuse me, miss, it's just that I own the bar... So I just wanted to know if you needed anything." There were so many stimuli that I couldn't even feel embarrassed, so I replied something like "Sorry, sir, the humiliation of the fall is enough... Now this... But yes, everything's fine, thank you!" and we all found peace laughing at the situation. I was offered water, which I felt obliged to accept, but more for the comfort of the group as a whole than for my level of drunkenness (at least in my head). The fall made it seem like I was 10 times drunker than I actually was, and I felt that with this gaffe I had a sign taped to my forehead that read "I CAN'T DRINK."

We all recovered, they from their laughter, I from my landing, and we decided it was an appropriate time to end the night. We stopped to eat some fries and got into an Uber back to Copacabana, all together, as the guy lived very close to our Airbnb. We got out of the car, and before continuing his journey home, he decided to walk me to the building door while the Uber waited. At that point, just to top it off, I dropped my purse in the street and all my belongings scattered across the asphalt, causing the poor guy to stoop down to gather all my stuff. I just thought to myself: "God bless his soul...", because with all the mishaps of the night, he had the patience of Job. In the end, I think he had fun with our group. He sent me a message the next day wishing me a good trip back, and my reply was "Thank you! Sorry about anything...". Today, whenever I remember this story, I'm curious to know what his impression was, if he thinks I'm insane, and how he might have told this story to others. I guess I'll never know!

Over the next few days, Mariana, Rachel, and I literally lost our breath recalling the incident. I myself told everyone at my work and couldn't stop laughing to myself during office hours. I think I've already told this story to everyone I know, and now, I'm telling it to you, tropilovers. For some schizophrenic reason, I even have a certain pride in this event, so funny it was. I don't know exactly why, but it feels like it didn't happen to me but to a close friend. Perhaps because I was in Rio de Janeiro and didn't know anyone who was present; after all, if the same episode had happened in São Paulo, I would already be dead, buried, and would never leave the house again in my life.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed another tale from my little life. A kiss and a cheese,

PS: I forgot an important addendum: At some point in the night we met Defante.