It was Felipe’s 19th-century photograph collection that first attracted Robert. Also, he adds: “He’s a very handsome guy.” They found each other’s profiles on Instagram in that quiet period between Christmas and the New Year bringing in 2017, and started following each other – Robert in Oxford, Felipe in Juiz de Fora in south-eastern Brazil, which is where they are when we talk. Both art historians, they would occasionally comment on each other’s posts. “There was a portrait of an ancestor of his, and also I thought he was very handsome,” says Felipe. Robert liked Felipe’s tattoos, “some of which are based on an artist I really like. I immediately thought, ‘Oh, he has a Gustave Doré tattoo.’ I saw we had quite a lot of mutual interests.”
A few months later, Robert made a comment on a “story” – the Instagram feature that allows people to make temporary posts – Felipe had put up about an evangelical Christian trying to convert him at his gym. “I thought about messaging you long before that, but I never wanted to seem presumptuous,” says Robert. The timing was perfect, says Felipe – he had just come out of a relationship. “If you had done it before I wouldn’t have talked to you really,” he says.
They started messaging every day – long conversations about art and Brazil. They planned a video call, but first sent each other recordings of themselves reading bits of books they liked so “we would know what each other’s voices sounded like”, Felipe says.
In October 2017, they said they loved each other. “I told him in a sort of cryptic way,” says Felipe. “I couldn’t really say it properly because I was unsure of his feelings. A few days later, we were video chatting and he told me he loved me.” Robert smiles and nods: “I’d never said those words before. I think we just sat there grinning.” Felipe laughs. “I remember it very well,” he says. “He was wearing a dressing gown. It was probably cold and probably very late for him, because of the time difference.”
They finally met in February last year. Felipe was in France, doing research for his PhD, and travelled to Oxford. “It was the strangest thing,” Robert says. “Someone you’ve only seen in photos and videos was suddenly there. It was such a lovely feeling. We had messaged for so long, we already knew each other.” Meeting in person “was just the last confirming thing”.
At the end of the week they were so devastated at having to part that Felipe bought a new plane ticket and stayed for another week. “Which, financially was crazy because I couldn’t really afford it,” he says. “But it was worth it.”
Robert went to Brazil three months later to meet Felipe’s family; since then, they have managed to see each other every couple of months, and Felipe will soon be moving to Paris to continue his research. “Ultimately, we want to live together in the same country,” says Robert. This may not be Brazil, where the president Jair Bolsonaro, elected in October, is a self-declared homophobe whose views have been accused of legitimising a resurgence of violence against LGBT people. In Ludlow, the Shropshire town where Robert’s family live, “when we’re holding hands people stare but it’s not like they’re going to do anything,” says Felipe. “Whereas in Brazil, if we did that in certain places I would feel threatened.”
Neither was expecting to find love on Instagram. “It was a bit of a surprise,” says Robert. “I wasn’t looking. I had decided I was going to put all the dating apps to one side and focus on my PhD. I used to despair about being single and would talk to my dad about it, and wonder if there was something wrong with me. He said that it will come when I least expect it. I thought, ‘That’s a cliche,’ but it came true.”
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