Hi all! Well here I sit in my hotel room in Rome again. How lucky am I that I am back here for the third time for work and it just so happened I found it cheaper to fly in on a Saturday AND I was still friends with my Italian date, Alessandro, on facebook. I was so excited to tell him I would be coming to Rome. I couldn't wait to get pampered and be flirted with and doted on in a foreign accent with incomplete sentences. I imagined him coming up to me in his "motor-cycle" said with an enforced second syllable with flowers hanging off his arm and a giant smile on his face. I was ready for him to pick me off my feet and take me to eat something amazing and talk about life, politics, Bikram yoga and how unapologetic-ly happy we were in our lives. You may already know this, but I sometimes have to find out, in unpleasant settings, life is not like the movies.
Alessandro and I had facebook chatted about 10 times in the past 3 weeks. Our chats consisted of when I would be in town, when I would call him and whether or not he was sure he remembered me. He threw out a memory or two that did not ring a bell with me, but I didn't care, he was the only person I knew in Rome. I sent him a facebook message this morning letting him know I had arrived, I was still hesitant to give him my actual phone number, I think because sometimes I wondered if it were a language barrier or if he were in fact the slightest bit retarded and I couldn't risk that type of publicity. :) Either way he had the night off work tonight, but suddenly (?) it had been revoked and instead he had to work. Mind you he is a waiter and any night's work is good, so I didn't hold it against him. We decided to meet for lunch.
After getting turned around on the metro system, not once, not twice, but three times, I finally made my way to where he told me to go. Then he greeted me on his "Motor-cycle" with my own helmet to wear. We went for lunch at a place that was, well, more like a soup kitchen. I played along. Cute guy, little money, eating out of a pie sheet, sure, why not? I mean, sure he talked more about being depressed and angry than most people do on a date, but I was removing my non-certified therapist hat and letting him rant and hoping for an ending to it. Then he went to work. I debated on whether or not to meet him later at his work, I was tired, he wasn't getting off until 11, but I reminded myself, "Hadalina, it is Rome, just do it". So I did. I walked aimlessly around the city then metro jumped my way back to my hotel, showered, changed, and headed back about 9:30. After all, he invited me to eat at his restaurant... a free Italian meal near the Trevi Fountain??? FOR SURE! for not. He encouraged me to order the fish, but I also wanted a caprese salad. He gave me the "really? you sure you want all that food?" look that I did not approve of, but I still ordered it anyway. When I politely took out my work amex to pay for my meal fully expecting if not a complete refusal then a large discount, I was surprised when all he told me was that they did not accept amex. Let's keep in mind I barely ate my fish because it still had the eyes, tail, gills and bones...the only reason it wasn't flopping was because I believe it was flash fried alive (Alessandro ate all of it). Either way, my bill of 63 euros arrived for me to pay. Shocking. But the Italian of my dreams INSISTED I not give him a tip, "maybe a kiss later" is what he said. Okay, I'll give a kiss over a tip on an $86 meal that I didn't want in the first place. "Hadalina, you are vacationing, go with the flow."
He said he would be done with work at 11, but when 12:30 arrived and he still wasn't finished, I nearly left, but I thought, I only have one night and I flew all this way. Finally, he finished and off to a bar we went. At the bar we somehow got on the subject of sex, shocking I'm sure. I informed him it wasn't my thing, I wanted to be committed to my partner. To my complete surprise, this was over the world shocking to him. He snapped at me, told me I shouldn't have come over to Italy if I wasn't planning on that happening. Mind you he must have forgotten the whole reason I am here in the first place is because of work. The conversation got so awkward and angry that even though we came together on his "motor-cycle", we only left through the same door because they only had one to leave from at the bar.
I didn't realize letting someone know you met a year before that you would be back in town meant they expected you to have sex with them, buy expensive meals from their restaurant and leave the tipping up to physical acts of appreciation. I didn't expect that because I'm neither a whore nor an international philanderer. However, I did learn something about men tonight. Never underestimate the power of sex with them. They expect it, they act upon the intention of getting it and they become adolescent children when they don't get it. I find it a bit humiliating and a bit humorous, but as I have said before...I do not regret the things I have done, nor the things I have yet to do. Apologies, Alessandro, you are neither a regret nor a notch, but a damn good story to tell over and over again. However, I am excited to announce my next new project!!
When I return from this triumphant trip of work success, personal growth, and one less potentially sexually transmitted disease, I plan to join back into the online dating world. But not just one particular world, multiple ones, and I plan to keep you informed about it all. I hope to entertain you, enlighten you (and myself a little) and keep things a little bit more humorous for you from that point on, so stay tuned!!
