As he worked long days on set, I stayed in our hotel alone, with no responsibilities: No job, no housewife duties, no one to look after. All I had was time, and that was my opportunity to do something I had been postponing for a while: Starting to write my first screenplay in English.

So I did what my strict self usually does when working on a project: I turned into what I like to call “Sergeant Mode.” I hid my cellphone in the closet, disconnected my computer from the WIFI, and brought out my paper-back dictionary as if it were nineteen ninety-five.

Being born and raised in Argentina, my first language is Spanish, and so, when I write in English, I second-guess myself a lot. Don’t get me wrong, as a naturally anxious person second-guessing myself is something I do on a regular basis, but this time the voices in my head were a little more aggressive than usual.

It took me a couple of days to get “in the zone,” and for me to create this micro-climate, I had to produce an effective schedule. I woke up at seven a.m., had breakfast, and then wrote for four hours in my pajamas. At one, I’d go to the hotel’s pool, and while swimming I would think about my writing: What I liked, what I wanted to change, what I needed to fix. After that, I’d make myself some lunch at our tinny long-stay-room kitchen. Back then I wasn’t a sophisticated cook, so my meals were usually quick and easy, following three variables: Chicken and a salad, soup and a salad, sandwich and a salad.

After lunch, I wrote for three more hours, then plugged into my headphones and went for a walk while listening to “The Writer Files”, a podcast that addressed secrets to productivity and creativity.

It took me around four days to get fully in “the zone” without cheating. That is: Texting, scrolling through social media until my thumb started to cramp, or reading magazine articles that didn’t bring much to the table, such as “Fourteen ways to do your hair in fourteen seconds or less”, or “Super Stars do it too!!: Twenty pictures of your favorite celebrities blowing their nose and cracking their knuckles”,

The moment I had fully reached “Sergeant Mode” and was finally happy and motivated, a phone call in the middle of the day made me lose my tranquility. It was my husband. He knew I had hidden my phone in the closet, so he was calling the hotel room’s line instead.

Whenever he calls me from work, my heart skips a beat, and the voices in my head suggest that the worse has happened: That he broke both legs and is now on his way to the hospital, that he lost an eye, or other thoughts among those lines.

Thankfully, none of the above were right this time. He was calling to tell me that his boss had found a stray dog close to set and decided to adopt it. He couldn’t bring it to work and was worried about leaving it alone all day in his hotel room. So my husband told him that I was going to take it out on several walks during the day, and now he was calling to let me know.

Did this bother me? Of course it did. What would you expect? I was in “Sargent Mode”! This was pricking my bubble.

I didn’t know my husband’s boss very well, but I had certainly heard a lot about him: He was a big-time stunt coordinator who had been in the business forever, and who my husband looked up to a lot. I must say he intimidated me a little. He hopped into our phone conversation and thanked me in advance for my generosity, and I immediately started to feel better. It was nice to feel helpful, after all. I didn’t have much experience in this field, but how difficult could it be to walk a dog?

The next morning my husband left extra early because he had a challenging stunt. He was going to be involved in a typical Western “Saloon Fight” that involved him being pushed onto a window, breaking the glass with his body and falling two stories to the ground. Not that I intend to compare myself to him, but that day he wasn’t the only one to face a challenge. I had one of my own: I was stepping out of my schedule.

After my husband left, I went to meet with the dog, who was adorable, but also huge and strong. How come he had forgotten to mention that detail? He was so tall he barely fit inside his kennel. As soon as I opened the den’s door, he jumped out and galloped towards the entrance.

“Cajun!” I called him, but he didn’t acknowledge me. He was recently named like that, so he didn’t quite grasp that was his name yet. “This is going to be interesting,” I thought to myself.

I put him on the leash, and out we went. Opposite to my typical neighborhood walks, there was nothing smooth nor relaxing about taking this big dog out, as he kept on pulling and dragging me. In order to walk him, I had to grab the leash tight with both hands. I could tell he was a good boy, but he just had zero experience walking on a leash. How could I blame him?

It was a beautiful sunny day, and while we walked, it occurred to me that I could still listen to my favorite podcast, but no. The moment I let go of one hand to take my headphones out of my purse, he pulled extra hard, and I face-planted on the floor. Cajun towed me as if I were waterskiing over the “Weekend at Bernie’s”.

As I started to chase after him, I glanced at a group of vaping teenagers who had apparently seen the whole scene, staring at me, laughing. Did I look that pathetic? As Cajun stopped to pee on a tree, I got a hold of the leash, and we walked back to the room were, with the help of treats and a push, I managed to place him back in the kennel, before heading back to my room to write.

When I sat down at my desk, the words poured out quickly. I was impressed by how well the scene I was working on was now flowing. Maybe stepping out of my comfort zone and hitting my head on the ground was what I needed to put my ideas in order? I once read about a man who woke up from a concussion knowing how to play the piano.

Later that day, I came back to the dog’s room for a second visit. I was feeling confident and victorious since I had finished my scene in record time. “This time I will tame the beast!” I thought to myself. I would walk him on a short leash. I would be in charge. Or so I thought…

I swiped the key to open the door and the light went green, but when I pushed it, it barely moved. Something was off. I looked through the room’s window and then saw it: One side of the curtain pole had fallen, blocking the door. The kennel was open, and the place was a complete wreck: Toilet paper, clothes, bedsheets, and towels were scattered everywhere. It looked like Cajun was having a full-on party in there. I tapped on the glass to get his attention, and he hardly looked at me as he was lying on the bed and chewing on the TV’s remote control, with his tail wagging.

“You didn’t close the kennel right.” Those authoritarian voices in my head were back in action. “You had ONE job, Sofia. And you couldn’t do it right.”

Then, my thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a hotel employee who walked down the hallway. He looked like he could be Latino and was wearing a uniform with a label that read “Roberto.” The signs were there, but I didn’t want to be presumptuous, so I asked him:

“Do you speak Spanish?”

When he replied, “Yes,” I exhaled in relief.

I explained what was happening to him, and he used a key to open another sneaky door to the room. All hotel rooms have sneaky doors, and that day I was thankful for that. As he entered and saw the mess, he decided to make a joke:

“You’re great. Would you babysit my kids?”

But I didn’t have time for jokes. This was a serious matter, and I was overwhelmed. What if my incompetence ended up damaging my husband’s career? I had a couple of hours before everyone came back to the hotel, and I was determined to hide the evidence. With Roberto’s help, I managed to put Cajun back in his kennel, and this time, I made sure to turn the door’s handle all the way until I heard a “click.”

“How much for a new curtain pole?” I asked Roberto.

“You’re fine. We have tons in storage.”

“And how much for a new remote control?” I added as I held what was left of one Cajun had been chewing on for hours.

“Same. It’s a generic one. Don’t worry about it.”

“And the curtains?” I asked, pointing at the chunks of torn fabric on the floor.

“It’s all good. Easy to replace.” God bless Roberto.

Roberto left for twenty minutes and came back with a new remote control, new curtains, and a pole, and I managed to tidy up the place until there was no evidence left.

Then I sat on the bed in alleviation and noticed Cajun staring at me. He didn’t look sorry, but he didn’t look defiant either. He knew I had failed but he didn’t judge me. He was more sympathetic than the voices in my head.

Even though I wasn’t listening to everything he was saying, I was observing. There was something different about him, and I couldn’t truly put my finger on what that was. I kept examining him: His thick eyebrows, brown skin, and bright white teeth that shinned under the club’s black light… and then it hit me: This guy had the most symmetrical face I had ever seen. His bone structure was so proportional and perfect that I just knew that if I took a ruler out and started to measure his face, the results would add up to the Golden Ratio.

“I want to take you out on a date,” he pronounced suddenly, interrupting my analysis. “Does Wednesday work for you?,” Do you like sushi?,” he added. Wednesday worked, and sushi was my favorite. Intrigued by his charm and symmetrical perfection, I said yes.

The morning after, not only did I wake up with a terrible hangover, but also with the certainty that this date was never going to happen. I liked him, and it seemed like he liked me back, but I was also realistic. I was used to what we Argentinians call ‘chamuye”, a slang that refers to something most Latin men tend to do, which is to say things they don’t actually mean, just for the sake of the flirt. I think it would be safe to say that “el chamuye,” after futbol (soccer), is the second more practiced sport by heterosexual men in Latinamerica. Another reason I was certain that this was not going to happen was the fact that he hadn’t asked me for my phone number. Sure, he could easily get it from our friend, but, since this request had taken place at a noisy club at four in the morning, did it even count? Would he even remember asking me out?

To my surprise, he did, and when I received a text message from him a couple of days later, it caught me off guard.
“Does around seven still work for you? I’m gonna make a reservation”, the message read. It confused me at first, so I had to re-read it, and then a second message popped up: “ This is Ryan, by the way.” This certainly was an unexpected outcome. Maybe Americans didn’t know about “el chamuye”?

In an attempt to act cool, I waited a full ten minutes before I replied: “Yes, seven sounds good.”, and then we texted back and forth to coordinate the details. I was working until late that day, so we agreed to meet at the restaurant directly.
It looked like, after all, this was going to happen.

The next day, like the good Latin I was, I arrived late. I got to the restaurant at seven twenty and scanned the place looking for him. It was a silent two-story eatery, with dozens of tables, and zero people. I spotted Ryan pretty fast. He was their only customer. No one has dinner that early in Mexico.

When he saw me, he smiled, and I recognized his shinning chiclets in the distance. This was a very different scenery from the one where we had met: No drinks, no loud music, no club lights. It was a long summer day, the sun was still out, and as I walked towards the table, the place was so noiseless that I could hear the sound of my steps. From one moment to another, I started to feel awkward. First dates often made me feel this way. They’ve always resembled job interviews to me: Cordial words, fake smiles, and a lot of standard courtesy etiquette, things I had never been a natural at. As I got closer to him, a voice in my head reminded me some of them: “Sit up straight and lean slightly forward, look in the eye and smile, don’t step on his last couple words.” I frequently did Ok at job interviews. At first dates, not so much.

Ryan looked so serene that it made me nervous, the kind of nervous that makes your hands sweaty, and turns your face completely red. He was in a foreign country where he didn’t speak the language, at a date with someone he barely knew, alone at an empty restaurant that had nothing cozy about it, just sitting there, smiling pleasantly. I always admired people who felt comfortable everywhere they went.

After a first-round of food and sake, the conversation started to flow. We talked non-stop, and it looked like we had a lot in common. I was still a little anxious, but something about his warm personality made me feel safe. Who cared if we were the only people at the restaurant? We didn’t need them. This interview was going great!

After half an hour, I had already warmed up and, to my amazement, I made a rampant volte-face. I stopped trying to look cute or put together, to just be my goofy self. I talked to him about my job, about my friends and family, about my hopes and dreams. Words flowed out of my mouth like a fondue fountain, and then I did something common sense people would probably strongly discourage you from doing on a first date: I told him a poop story. It wasn’t mine, but of who was my roommate at the time. The poop event had happened one week before our date, so it was still very fresh, and I guess I still was trying to digest it. What happened was that my roommate had accidentally pooped inside my purse. “What do you mean by accidentally?” you are probably wondering. Well, in order to explain that to you, I would have to dig into it in detail, and I’m pretty sure this is not the reading you anticipated when you chose to read an article titled “Best Birthday Ever.”

Even though some details were pretty disturbing, Ryan was very engaged in the story. He didn’t seem to think I was a freak for telling him this. In fact, I’m pretty sure he found the chronicle to be hilarious. I remember how, as I was telling him what had happened, he couldn’t contain his laughter, and all I could think was, “I think this guy gets me.” I’ve heard a theory before that said that poop stories brought people together, and now I was confirming that hypothesis. Everyone can relate to a good poop story, I guess.

Right after dinner, our server walked towards us with a colorful dessert and placed it right in front of me. Next to a scoop of ice-cream, in melted chocolate, in cursive writing, it said, “Happy Birthday,” and next to it, there was a heart.
“Sorry, wrong table. This is not for me.” I explained to the waitress as I grabbed the plate and attempted to return it.

Ryan bent over the table to get a closer look at it, and then faced the server, with a confused look. The woman stared back at him, befuddled as well. He then murmured something to her, and she didn’t understand him at first, but after he repeated it a couple more times, she stared at the dessert one more time, now with certainty.

“Oh!” she exclaimed and then chuckled. Ryan started to laugh too.

What was going on? What were these two laughing about? I wanted to know.

“It was supposed to say Happy First Date. Not Happy Birthday.”, Ryan then said to me.

He explained that he had called the restaurant earlier that day asking for that, and the employee on the other side of the line had clearly misunderstood him. After those words came out of his mouth, I dropped my chopsticks on the table and stared at him. Then our waitress left, and we shared the dessert in complete silence; he had exceptionally found a way to stop my verbiage.

“That is one of the sweetest things someone has ever done to me,” I later said to him. I felt as if he knew how much I struggled with first dates.

Romance is not dead, my friends. It is still alive and kicking. You just might not find it in its conventional places anymore. You won’t necessarily see it in a walk on the beach, a rose, or a hand-written letter. Instead, now it could be hidden in an inarticulate four a.m. party conversation, an empty sushi restaurant, or an atypical poop story. Keep your eyes open (and your purse closed), because times have changed.