ITALIAN MEN.

And
then suddenly, I had a new life in Rome.

The church in Piazza Navona by night

All
at once this is both utterly amazing and surreal and bizarre, and absolutely No
Big Deal. If, Internet, you so desire to continue the illusion that I am my own heroine in a shitty B-list Hollywood chick-flick (I DO) I think this is the
point at which the first act has seen its close. The pavement-pounding, frustratingly
un-concrete, misunderstanding-fuelled scenes of the first 30 minutes where I
had no home, no money, and no prospects have given way to the bit where I just
Get My Head Down And Get On With It.

Because
I am so good at that.

Getting
On With It has seen me walking around my new (FUCKING FLOODED) apartment in my
underwear for the past two weeks, thinking all four of the men I live with are
gay.

(And
actually, let’s just tidy-up the flooded apartment story whilst we are here:
the flat downstairs were on holiday when it happened and just got back two days
ago. Their ceiling was ruined. We have to pay for it. THIS IS SO PAINFUL THAT I
CAN’T EVEN MAKE A JOKE ABOUT IT.)

Turns
out that I really need to hone up on my Gay
or European skill set because nope. Not gay. They’ve been getting a
free-ass peep show of all my best and worst bits, and haven’t even brought me a
drink yet. The truly devastating bit is that if I were honestly trying to woo a
straight man, I wouldn’t do it in my underwear. I’m a ‘personality’ girl- Rosie
Huntington-Whiteley I ain’t. Even if I am splashing around the paddling-pool of my
flooded bedroom as if in my own version of Flashdance.

When the floor was underwater it looked like the sea

I
have been trying to make Italian friends fully-clothed, in general. I am too
broke/lazy/cheap to pay for formal Italian lessons just now- and, not to
mention, considering I spent the morning Googling ‘jobs in Istanbul’ probably
not going to be here longer than my contract anyway- so signed up for a
conversation exchange program. This is not unakin to online dating. The
difference is, with an online conversation exchange profile you don’t get to
see anyone’s photograph before you meet them. Awkward.

Conversation
exchange saw me receive 22 emails in the evening following my joining. All of
these were from men. Some seemed very lovely and genuine: “I be pleased to be
your Italian teacher and make good talking for you”. Some were a little more,
how should I say this? Italian: “If
you are open-minded, and I think you are (*insert wink-y emoticon*) this is my
Facebook…” Obvs I clicked on the link, and yeah he was cute, but even me and my
sexually dubious moral compass thought it was perhaps just a little forward. 

Although, at this point in my narrative, it is worth mentioning that any
Italian man one meets will have no qualms asking if you have a boyfriend as
their way of introduction. Otherwise, I suppose, they might be in danger of
wasting their time. Maybe I should go out wearing less, after all. You know-
just to be clear about things.

Aaaaaand
since we’re playing Gay or European,
I’d also like to take this opportunity to point out that often, the men in
question are just as confused themselves. Last week my ex-pat friend told me
that he was given a Vespa-ride around the city by his new
male-friend-with-a-girlfriend, and when they parked up and went into some
nearby bushes, my ex-pat friend blew him. But, of course, this doesn’t make the
male-friend-with-the-girlfriend gay. Of course not. Nor is it cheating. 

Similarly,
I have an actor friend who tours Italy and his favourite story involves a man
in front of him, holding his own ankles in preparation for pleasure, and as my
friend bonked him from behind, looking around and enjoying the view, he
realised that he was surrounded by photographs of this man’s wife and three
kids. Who lived there. And were probably upstairs.

Conversation
Exchange has proved fruitful thus far, with a 32 year-old theatre worker and an
Investment Banker proving in particular to be wonderful partners. 

It did occur
to me though, as I waited to meet the banker for the first time, that even
though I sat on the steps of a landmark Roman building silently saying to
myself over and over again Please don’t
be a weirdo, Please don’t be a weirdo, Please don’t be a weirdo it was
highly plausible that my language partners could be absolutely normal, wishing
the exact same thing (although, in their head, they would be making this wish
in Italian, and I don’t know the vocab to translate that. I can, however, ask
where the bathroom is) and HOLD ON. What if I AM a weirdo? 

I make friends wherever I go...

Essentially, I’m
taking a sort of be my friend attitude
to all of this, and who goes online to make friends? A certain type of person,
right? The type of person often one doesn’t want to meet? And they could be all
‘Let’s exchange language points’ and I’m all ‘Yeah, but can we just hang out in
this pub and talk in English so I don’t feel lonely?’ Add this to the fact that
I consider this an entirely permissible way to make friends because my
horoscope for October says that I will make fruitful relationships via the
online world, and November is a good month for marriage (FUCK YOU, ASTROLOGY
BOOK) and really, I’m just a recipe for fruit-and-nut-soup that means clothing
or no, maybe I shouldn’t be ‘making friends’ because I don’t wear enough in the
house and take advice from reduced-price Gemini guides I got at a petrol
station.

£2.99 for a 15-month forecast? BARGAIN. And it's all true.

I’m
not sure I’d want to meet me. Would you?*

*Internet,
please note the rhetorical nature of this question. Kthxby.