I Hooked Up With My Friend's Dad on Vacation in Spain

It was an accident. It was also inevitable.

- ARYA PATEL

I met Maria* in the bathroom of a student bar that was blasting cheesy pop songs from the aughts. We struck up a tipsy conversation, complimented each other's outfits, and soon found ourselves gushing over our mutual love for anime, dystopian fiction, and all things nerdy. And thus, a friendship was born.

I was 18, a shy introvert who'd just moved out of my family's place to attend college in a different city. Maria was spending a semester abroad at my school. She'd been born and raised in Spain her parents had divorced when she was a kid, and she now lived with her dad in Granada. Before she came along, I'd felt like a fish out of water at freshman orientation. But we made the perfect pair of homebodies, bonding over dubious culinary experiments with ramen and movie nights fueled by cheap wine.

I was bummed as the semester ended and Maria went back to Spain, but we stayed in touch, and a few months later, she suggested I come to Granada for a week during summer break. I could stay with her at her dad's home and we'd go sightseeing. Obviously, I wasn't going to say no to a European holiday, so I booked budget airline tickets and was soon on my way.