...And Then Things Got a Little Weird

While at the Vatican the next day, I received five phone calls, two voice mails and a text message. The man was getting impatient and I was getting cold feet. What was I supposed to do? Indulge in this foreign less-than-24-hours romance with the man that claims I am his soulmate (WOAH...) or blow him off knowing nothing would come of it?

I called him back with the pretext that I was in a church and couldn't talk on the phone and in less than an hour, he met me by one of the big fountains in St. Peter's Square, motorcycle helmet in hand. He immediately went in for a kiss and I turned to give him my cheek, and he was a bit surprised. He tells me he came on his bike which only had room for two, but there was no way I was going to hop on his bike with him so he can drive me to a far, remote place and lock me up forever, so I asked Desiree to stay with me.

As we strolled through the freezing Roman streets, I mentioned my hands were cold since I had lost a glove the night before, and we stopped at a street vendor's store ( consisting of a blanket laid out on a sidewalk with what is most likely to be stolen merchandise) where he bought me a pair of gloves. The more we walked, the more my feet throbbed and the more we steered out of the city center and into shady, not-so-glitzy neighborhoods. He wanted to show me the restaurant where he worked in case I ever needed to find him. Mind you, the restaurant was closed and he knew it! I thought we were going to eat there and I was starving. After this pointless trip to his closed restaurant, I suggested we get back to the center since I didn't feel very safe. Of course, he assured me that he was a nice guy and wouldn't harm me, but I found that hard to believe as he had me in a near head lock as those very words were coming out of his mouth.

The more this awkward date went on, the more I wanted it to end. The man wouldn't let go of me. At all times, there had to be some body contact, whethe it was gripping my hand so tight the blood wasn't circulating, or putting his arm around me so roughly I felt he was about to tackle me. While on the metro, I stared forward and I could feel him staring at me (he was sitting next to me). I looked at the reflection on the glass in front of me to confirm, and yes indeed, he was staring with dreamy eyes thinking of god knows what with a silly smile on his face. I asked him to please stop staring at me, and he said he couldn't take his eyes off of me. He never wanted to forget my face. He kept trying to kiss me and I continued to turn my head. I told him I only let him kiss me the night before because it was New Year's Eve. Special occasions call for exceptions.

By the time we got back to Rome center, I was desperately searching for excuses in my head to end this. And he was searching for words to express his undying love for me, a girl he hasn't even bothered to ask what she's doing in Rome, where she lives, or what her favorite color is. Whenever he opened his mouth, it was either to talk about his strong feelings or to put a cigarette in his mouth. Some of the things he told me included (roughly translated by me from Italian into English):
1) "But why do I need to know anything about you? All I need to do is look into your eyes and I know everything there is to know."
2) "I love you. I love you. I love you." (at normal voice level, in whispers, or just mouthing it out with no sound.)
3) "My heart is beating 1,235,843 times per second at the sight of you. I love you."
4) "You don't believe how much I love you? Do you want me to shout it to all the streets of Rome so that I can prove it to you? Because I can do that, if you want."
5) "I really don't want you to forget how much I love you. I want to write it on a piece of paper for you to take with you back to France so that when you look at it, you remember."
6) "So why is it that you won't just move to Rome and live with me? You have my love, that's all you need."
And the list goes on......

Now just imagine if you were in my shoes. What would you do? I couldn't take advantage of this man's feelings for me. I had already planned to at least get dinner out of this, but even that was too much. I agreed to a cup of coffee and that's it. I would then go home with the excuse that my feet really hurt and that I wasn't hungry at all for dinner (the latter being a big fat lie). And after coffee, I had to break it to him. I didn't love him. He was too much to handle. I wasn't moving to Rome to marry him. And that I was sorry I couldn't reciprocate his feelings for me.

He took a few steps back, took out a cigarette, lit it up, puffed anxiously, and cried. Yes, cried. I heard sniffles, and I couldn't believe it till I turned around and saw with my own eyes.

Franco wasn't the same person as yesterday. On the last day of 2007, he was mysterious, romantic, enticing, attractive... but on this first day of 2008, in broad daylight, we was overbearing, emotional, obsessive, posessive, scary. Perhaps there was some sort of shift in the universe while we were asleep. However, I must say that this was one hell of a way to ring in the new year.