Tennis Joe

Recently, I have been taking advantage of the Barcelona Tennis website by sending out mass e-mails detailing dates and times I am available to play. Through my new method, I have met a short, Peruvian man named Joe. After canceling several times due to illness, we finally played a couple weeks ago and were pretty closely matched so have played again since then.

When we play, we mostly speak English because he likes the practice. I'm probably the worst person to practice English with since I never correct him (he says things like "I don't want to be too gossip, but what is your um..." when asking about my rent).

Each time I meet up with him I realize something new and strange about him. On the metro home last week, I realized he has a coke pinkie nail. A couple times ago, I noticed his strange patchy chest hair that shows through his v-neck jerseys he plays in. I initially guessed he was in his mid to late-30s but it turns out he's 28. He is also shorter than me.

Today I received a text message from him saying:

"Hi Hillary!ive seenur email.would like play this wed.r u up 4 drink or eat someth.later?Horton is another option.tickets go on me.just do 1 missed call.joe"

I think he's asking me out? I am not okay with this. We are exclusively tennis partners and being asked out by short, hispanic men has secretly been by biggest fear with the tennis website up to this point (especially after I played a Spanish man who thought it was funny to hit me in the back with spare balls when I was walking to the baseline). The fact that I only semi-understand his text message really doesn't help. I know Horton refers to the new animated English movie I have no desire to see, but "1 missed call"? Why would I do 1 missed call? As much as I want to get to the bottom of this, I now want to change phone numbers and avoid seeing him for the rest of my time here. Luckily, he isn't a member at the tennis club.