A Night out in Rio!

Today is dia dos namorados, the Brazilian version of Valentine’s Day, and both Julia and I are single so walking around and seeing all the couples kind of made me want to punch some of them. So tonight we went out and had some fun along with the rest of the singles in Rio de Janiero. We arrived at the Singles party kind of early and it took awhile for more people to arrive but after an hour it was packed and both Julia and I were a little tipsy from sitting around and drinking. But after we started dancing I felt the need for a little more alcohol and went to buy some alone while I was on line waiting to pay for my drinks this guy started speaking to me. With the loud music and the alcohol I could barely make out a word he was saying so I interrupted him and told him I spoke English best. At which point he started speaking to me in English and when I responded in English he started to insult me, he said that I am obviously not from America because I have an accent and that I was lying because I was trying to seem like I was better than him. So I just ignored him bought my drinks and went to complain about his rudeness to my cousin. She then informed me that he was just hitting on me and that a lot of Brazilian boys are dicks when it comes to approaching a girl (well she didn’t really say that but that’s what I took from it). After an hour or so of dancing Julia started taking videos of me and this other guy decided he wanted to get in on what looked like a photo. I stepped away from him forcing his arm, which was resting on my shoulder to fall at his side. He then proceeded to try and grab my arm and I pushed him away, he continued to try and touch me while asking to take a photo with me I then said I did not want to take a photo with him. Julia interfered saying that I was American and did not speak much Portuguese he then called me a snob in Portuguese, a word I did not understand so I asked Julia what it was he said. He then translated it for me, making me feel very uncomfortable and said that by taking a photo with him on his phone I would be proving him wrong. After saying that he tried to grab me and push my body towards his at which point I reacted and pulled his arms off me, he then dropped his cup of beer on my dress. I was getting really upset, which is very unlike me when I’m drunk, and started to walk away. Then he grabbed my arm for like the sixth time and said that now I had to take a photo with him because I was the one who spilled his beer so I reacted by pushing him away forcefully and left. Apparently in Brazil there are some guys who don’t really like getting turned down so much so that they feel the need to sexually harass the woman. So just in case you are planning on going to Brazil know that men grab women all the time at parties and no one finds it odd here. There are even some men who grab women and kiss them out of nowhere so you should be very attentive and if a guy grabs you push him away or move really fast. But whatever you do, do not slap or physically assault/abuse the man in any way because he will do the same to you and no one will find it odd. If a woman defends herself by using force and the man reacts in the same form they find it normal and the police won’t do anything about it here and if they do it would be in favor of the man and not the woman. Even though the night did not end perfectly I did have a lot of fun…