Part 141 · ~5 min read

Misero me…

I am not getting lazy; I do not feel like writing anything because I feel I am going nuts. I am lost in love. This girl is taking away from me the confidence I had. I feel undesirable, even ugly. She seems not to be attracted to me. Last week I asked her to move with me and her answer was “why should |?”. I thought it was clear why, but she asked the same question again, and my answer was as straight as it could be: “Because I love you”. “And you think people go to live together because one of the two is in love?”. I felt so humiliated by her answer. She noticed it and had a moment of pity towards me that made me feel even worse. “Sorry, I should not have said that”, she said. I just turned my back to her as if I was looking for the waiter to pay for the coffees we took, but he was not around. She stood up and placed her right hand on my left shoulder, pushing me down as to say, “Sit down; we are not finished here,” and so it was.

“How did you enjoy with Anneka?” her question. Followed immediately by another one: “Did you see her while in London?”. I answered positively to both questions but not without clarifying that sex was not something I was after: “I had plenty of it all my life, and I feel that there is more to relationships than sex”. “But it is nice when there is sexual compatibility between two people,” she said. I answered, nodding, and before I could say what I thought, she had taken my line, “Of course, we do not know if we are compatible, and to know that, we need to try and blah blah blah blah”, I nodded, looking down the floor realising how much crap can hide under the tables after a day of people eating, drinking, talking, arguing, courting in an anonymous bar in Central Rome. The guy’s next table seemed to get along much better. She was a young foreign girl with an accent that sounded Brazilian, while he was a man in his 50s, with at least one marriage passed, and a rebellious daughter called him every 2 minutes asking him for money. The girl was all attention to him while the father wondered what he could have done wrongly to deserve such a daughter. I was going to give him a few options, but I guess I was in a better situation than he was. “So, you still haven’t told me why I should move in with you, except that you love me?” I wanted her to be my wife, but if I had told her that, I would have scared her. Probably not. I am not sure. “Would you be able to love me even if I didn’t love you?” her immediate question. “Yes”, my immediate answer, “I am sure you would fall in love with me”. “How can you be so sure? So far, you have shown me your worst side. You treat women like objects, girlfriends like old furniture, the sort of bulky one that is due to make space for something new at any time; you constantly need sex, you do not know what friends are when it comes to sex, you like controlling people lives and make sure that everything revolves and evolves around your personality for which you have an incredible cult. You would be the perfect Mr Beckham I see you more like Victoria, to be honest”. “I was like that, and now I am changing” I said with very little voice left. “I am not sure I love you”, she said “but I do not feel like starting a story with you. I have been burned before, and they were people more reliable than you” ” She claimed to need her space, but when I told her that she was staying at Flavio’s place, she seemed rather annoyed. “Who told you that Flavio bothered me or took my space away? I am sure that living with you would mean seeing you constantly around me, calling me constantly, asking questions about likes and dislikes but more than anything else, it will be like living with Anneka: I should listen to your adventures, how good you are into everything you do, all your past love stories and girls you made suffer” I guess that she was right. Still, I was ready to change. “Last thing I want is to see you change because of me and if things turn bad you will hate me and I do not want to be hated anymore. I had enough shit in my life, and I cannot cope with it more.

I am stabilising my life, and my job is going well. Romano is back to be a dear friend, and I do not want anything that can hurt me”. “Are you in Love with Flavio?” my question. I was afraid of hearing a yes, but it was done. “do you think I would be such a bastard to tell you that I am in love with him if I am? Knowing how irritable you can get and that by the time I have said the three-letter Y-word, you would be on your way to his place threatening him?” I looked again at the floor, and the couple sitting by us realised it was their turn to enjoy the show. “You love him,” I said. “Let me be honest. It’s none of your business,” she replied. I could not believe she was in love with someone like him, but I could not say it. I would have burned all my chances to get here, and I wanted her. “Ok, I guess you demolished my last 2 grams of self-esteem, and it’s time to leave”. I took the bill, and I have not spoken to her since. I am not sure I will talk to her again. I have ignored Flavio completely. I don’t think I will talk to him for a while.