What a Pretty Blue Car Can Tell You About Portuguese Men

A warning signal had come up on the dashboard of my Volvo, indicating a problem with the tires that needed attention.

I went to a setvice station and topped up the air in each tire myself. But I still got the warning. So, I went back and had someone else top them up. Still the warning persisted.

Flummoxed, I decided to drive over to the pneus (tire) garage in a nearby town, the one where I’d gotten new tires last year.

As I pulled up to the facility, I saw the cutest car ever. It was a 2024 VW T-Cross in a fabulous shade of Wedgewood blue. Visions of driving this little sweetie all over Europe filled my head. Not that I don’t love and appreciate my Volvo, but it is black, and this eye candy blue just lit me up.

There were two men talking next to it, also customers of the garage. I asked their permission to take a photograph, and one of them said, yes, sure. Then, as I held up my iPhone, he jumped into the picture himself.

“It’s so cute, I love it!” I said, pointing to the car.

“Are you saying there are two cute things here – myself and the car?” he asked, a big grin on his face. He seemed to expect a positive answer, so I said yes, of course.

The mechanic there was also unable to determine the problem, so I drove my car back to the dealership to see if someone there could make the warning light go away.

As luck would have it, Francisco was working that afternoon. Kind and smart, with a good sense of humor and good English, he is my favorite guy at the service desk. Francisco explained that although just about everything else is computerized, the Volvo system actually needs to be updated manually after you add air to the tires. He showed me how to do it.

Then, because we often chat about the cultural differences between our countries when I see him, I mentioned the incident with the guy and the photograph at the tire shop around the corner.

“Oh, that is typical Portuguese male behavior!” he said. “This need for admiration.”

“From when we are babies, our mothers, our grandmothers, our aunties all tell us how cute we are and how handsome we are. But when we are grown up, they stop saying it. So men have to find that affirmation somewhere else.”

Including, it seems, from a woman twice a guy’s age who happened to like the color of a car he was standing next to.

This explains a lot! 😆