A radical change and a jump in…
I’m 38, Italian, having just had a birthday. I’m a year into a relationship with an extraordinary 28-year-old Nepali guy who lives in Lisbon ten years of difference between us.
Our story feels like something out of a romance novel.
I was in Lisbon during the 2025 Europride, and I met him casually (I no longer use apps) during the day, in a restaurant, while my friends were ordering lunch and I just ordered a beer. At first I was pretty rude and didn’t even look at the waiter. It had been a long night, and I hadn’t exactly been an angel at Trump’s the night before - the count doesn’t matter, but I avoided, by sheer luck, anything more than kissing. Strong kissing, let’s use that euphemism. So when he came to bring the orders and I casually met his eyes, I was stunned, by the kindness in them, by how beautiful he was, and ashamed, at the same time, at how I’d treated him. Ashamed, and, I’ll admit, wanting more than just a kiss from him. I’ve never claimed to be a saint.
We finished and left, but by chance my friend had an issue to sort out, so I went back. For a good ten minutes I had to gather all my courage to re-enter the restaurant and ask for his Instagram. To my surprise, he gave it to me and asked if he could hug me. Of course I said yes.
On Instagram we arranged to meet after his working hours, at a pub in Bairro Alto. Long story short: something clicked, and he timidly, after a beer, asked if he could kiss me. I said yes. I still remember the softness of that kiss. There were more, and it was amazing and it has been every time since. I woke up to the softness of his voice, because I was at risk of losing my flight.
After that, nobody else was ever on my mind. I went back to Lisbon just two weeks later - we’d been writing every day since and asked him if he wanted to be my boyfriend. When I asked him, I genuinely wanted a monogamous relationship, though I understand that 2,000 km is quite a distance, and I’d rather compromise than lose him over it. I never placed any restriction on him, just asked for honesty, and offered the same in return. I never had to search for, or even felt the desire for, anybody other than him.
Since then, we’ve tried to meet once a month and video-call twice a day, not always successfully. For three weeks he lived with me in Italy, since our plan to go to Nepal together fell through because of the civil war. Now it’s been more than a year, and I feel that I really want him in my life. I planned it and told him I loved him during sunset at Miradouro da Senhora do Monte, with a symbolic ring, not an engagement, but something that meant, for me, that no one had ever been so important.
And now the questioning part, thanks for the patience and for reading this far. What should I do? I’m planning to move to Portugal, but it’s difficult. I’m a team and tech leader software engineer for a major company, and he’s a waiter. I’ve learned Devanagari/Nepali and Portuguese, both at A2, but I’m also beginning to get fed up with Italy itself, and my kind of job in Portugal and in Europe more generally would pay somewhere between 18% and 50% more than what I earn here. For my kind of work, several other countries offer special detaxation regimes - Portugal, for instance, would cut my taxes to a flat 20% if I moved there.
Since I don’t intend to leave anything rashly, only in a calculated way, I’ve been wondering whether I should first discuss with my company whether they’d let me work remotely, keeping in mind I’d still need the rest of the year in Italy after 183 days to preserve my fiscal residency. I’ve also started wondering whether Portugal is even the only option - I have a solid B2 in Spanish, so Spain comes to mind, and I’ve thought about Holland or Denmark too.
What would you do? I really think he’s my soulmate, and in many ways he’s proven it. But still I’m thinking about the age difference, the cultural background and shock, and anything else I might be blindly ignoring. What would you say?
Edit: paragraphs and grammar
Edit: fiscal residency