Surely, many of you, while visiting a Roman ruin, find it easier to picture yourselves as a gladiator battling a lion than as a simple patrician seated on those communal toilets that reveal a radically different notion of privacy. But lately, it seems that more and more hotels want to close a historic circle and return us to those origins; not because they unleash a ferocious beast at check-in, but because they have decided that the person sharing a room also shares… everything.
We’re not going to name names (nor go into too many details), but let’s do a brief exercise in imagination and empathy. Let us imagine a couple who have been dating for a few months, everything is going well and both are eager to take that step of a first trip together. A romantic getaway to a countryside house, with not too much commitment. What could go wrong? They arrive at the hotel, carefully chosen, with the aim of finding something sensual, comfortable, well located, with good views…
And upon entering the room they understand that, indeed, the views are going to be too expansive. If what they wanted was to get to know each other better, these three nights ahead will cause them to know each other all too well. Because the bed, as big as a studio apartment in downtown Madrid, is placed in the center of the room, facing a large glass wall that offers a spectacular mountain panorama, but right behind the headboard there are two large sinks, not even a mirror. Next to the window, a marble bathtub (very sexy, indeed) and, slightly set back, two glass doors conceal the toilet and the shower. Even worse: they partially conceal them, because the doors are sliding and the translucent vinyl on the glass doesn’t even reach the floor.
The journey had been long, four or five hours, with several coffees and a bite to eat. “Why go to the bathroom at the gas station when you’re so close to the hotel?” they had told themselves. And now, both think that they wish they had gone somewhere else and not to this room. The room of their dreams will compel them to speed up processes, to reach that dreaded point of intimacy rupture that many couples take years to reach or may never reach.
In this five-star hotel, dear lovers, side by side with queasy stomachs, you realize you would rather fight a lion in front of tens of thousands of people in the Colosseum than behave like a patrician and do what your body most desires in the presence of this single spectator. The head swirls with a search for a solution and, oh, what ingenuity, one of the two thinks of going to the reception to ask for toothpaste and to take advantage of the lobby bathroom… where already waits a small queue of other couples with the same problem.
