A Case Study

So I have some surprising news for everyone.

I've actually decided to stay in Italy forever with my Italian lover Giovanni.

APRIL FOOLS!!! Not that any of you who know me well were fooled in the first place.

But seriously, one of the first things people would say in Buffalo once they learned I was going to Italy was always something along the lines of "Italy, eh? Better watch out for those Italian men!" with various degrees of smirking, winking, or actual concern.

This left me with rather mixed feelings. Mixed, firstly because if there's one thing I've always resented it's undesired male advances, and secondly I was not going to Italy to scope out its male population. But on the other side of that, it's hard to avoid an entire half of a country's population when you move to said country. So unavoidably, I have run into "those Italian men" and after two months in the field I think I'm qualified to report.

The most striking difference between the Italian and American men is the Italian- would boldness be the right word? Maybe sheer audacity is better. No rejection is cowing for an Italian men. Even if his "ciao bella" gets him a single fingered salute in return, the Italian is utterly undaunted. If an Italian checks you out, you know. And so does everyone around you in a fifty foot radius. Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes it's just downright creepy.

For example, once I was walking past the street vendors and one of them called out to me "you dropped something!" I turned around, looking for the object in question and the seller met my gaze and said "my heart" in all seriousness. This was acceptable.

However, the time a pair of guys followed me and my friend all the way to my apartment demanding our phone numbers? This was not acceptable. Though in all fairness, these men were not Italian, but Albanian. The one detail they failed to mention at orientation was to avoid Albanian men at all costs, because no one does creepy quite like them.

The other thing I've noticed about Italian men is that they are persistent. Like, before you give an Italian your number make sure you have enough money for the phone bill. Because you WILL be hearing from him 24/7. But the nice thing about Italian men is that, once you make your disinterest clear, they will leave you alone. Even if you have to issue this disinterest explicitly.

But not everyone here shares my strict "leave me alone" policy. Between my roommates Kara (who is seeing one and a half Italians) and Arielle (who has witnessed not one, but two semesters of romance in Italy) I have heard love stories, horror stories, and everything in between.

In true girl fashion, I asked Kara one day if she liked the guy she was seeing. She turned to me with a half smile and offered, "I like him enough for the semester".

Kara is so smart.

See, what what I've gathered from Arielle, rumours running abroad before I actually went abroad, and people I've met here is that there is this grand fantasy of European Romance invested in the minds of Americans who study abroad. I don't know where it began. All it took was one story about one girl meeting someone while abroad and being swept off her feet, and suddenly the fantasy is everywhere. And I am saying that it's not possible? No. I just believe in a little something called logic. And logic says, is it a good idea to pursue a relationship while living 3000+ miles away from home for three months? No, it is not.

This is not to say that I discredit any of the dreamers who dream their dreams. It's just romance has never been my favourite genre of fiction, and when it gets down to it, American and Italian assholes are essentially the same. But on that same note, the keepers are always worth keeping.

Like everything else in this country, romance is never predictable. But as for me, the only delicious Italian thing lurking in my luggage on the way home will be oil olive. Any maybe some truffle oil, and Spanish cocoa as well.

I never said I didn't play the field, did I?