Italian Passion

"No, I will not go on a cruise with you" I told my grandmother.

It is hard enough, living in a house with an elderly Italian couple in love.

The worst is when my grandmother says, "I cannot wait until Bianca brings home a nice boy." So I started bringing nice boys home for dinner.

They usually like my grandmother’s food more than they like me. 

I just bring them to shut her up anyway. It is a win, win.

Italians in love are like dogs, loud and you can't get away from them.

I had to delete half of my friends from Italy on Facebook because they eat up my newsfeed with romantic pictures, quotes, songs and links. 

I do not care that you and your boyfriend of two weeks are "in love." In fact it annoys the shit out of me. It is better off that I am not exposed to your absurdity.

Know how many friends I have lost touch with because of "love?" (I am specifically referring to Italians here. Take this as nice cultural anthropology lesson for you.)

Right now, at this moment, I am going to let you in on a little secret.

 ITALIANS CHEAT. THEY ARE SERIAL CHEATERS, STAY AWAY. 

I don't know why. It must be that Italian passion. Everyone deserves a taste? Don't hold this against me. I never cheat… never. At least not according to my rule book. It isn't cheating unless you are married with children, and the children are under 10 years old. Now that is a reasonable rule, don't you think?

Anyway, back to the Italians. Every time I go to my small Sicilian town I hear a new cheating story.

Damnit, everyone in the entire town knows that child has another father, how the hell doesn't the husband know? The kid could be half chinese and the husband wouldn't have a clue. I find it quite amusing.

"How interesting, your daughter looks absolutely nothing like you. In fact she looks exactly like that man over there."

Now, this is exactly what I would say if I wasn't afraid of disappearing. So I keep my mouth shut and stick to gossiping about it with my cousins.

Thank goodness half of my friends can't read in English. About the other half, I would assume they are the educated half, open minded and accepting of my sarcasm.

For some reason, every time I visit my town, people know exactly where I am at any given moment.

I feel like a freaking celebrity every time I visit. Once, I found my picture on their website. I mean, I was getting milk from the store. Was it necessary to put up a picture of me holding a grocery bag?

One beautiful summer, I made the beautiful mistake of dating a boy from my town. I bet most of you know exactly who I am talking about.

He was not my boyfriend, just a fling. I stopped having boyfriends at 14 years old. I believe love comes once. The rest are for passing the time. 

I could be seeing someone for months, once they call me their girlfriend, I run away. Like, come on, who do you think you are? You need my permission to call me your girlfriend, stop acting crazy.

I guess I have commitment issues?  

Anyway, the two of us together was a bad idea. Neither him, nor I cared about what anyone had to say. We walked around the town holding hands like it was no big deal. Until people started asking if we were engaged. "Engaged? Please we haven't even slept together, gosh."

"YOU HAVEN'T SLEPT TOGETHER!"

Unless I wanted my grandparents to send me on a plane back home, and it to be written in the newspaper, I was not going to sleep with him. Small towns to blame that kid didn't get some.

Anyway, they did not believe a word of it. Probably because they are used to compulsive lying. With all of the 13 year olds running off with 24 year olds, you have to expect compulsive lying. My fling was only 3 years older than I. I had morals.

One night, a local restaurant owner offered my friend and I some beer and started conversation. He was a cool guy and I didn't think anything of it. Maybe because I was an innocent 15 year old. When my friend told me we had to leave because he was flirting with us I nearly cried. "Him, flirting with us? That is insane, we are 15, we know his daughter."

Now I know better.

His daughter was an acquaintance. We used to smoke cigarettes together behind the "office." You know, the secret place everyone smokes cigarettes, which is not actually a secret because everyone knows about it.

Just like the park. Everyone knows you are going to the park with your boyfriend for one reason, and one reason only. Just make sure you look in the mirror before you re-enter the piazza.

One night, I made the mistake of making out with this kid in the park.

When I walked back into the piazza, not knowing I had black shit all over my face, people began staring. To top it off, my entire face was red from his stupid half shaved beard. Then I remembered, I was wearing black lip liner. Mistake! Wrong time to be gothic, right?

Anyway, we were quite the couple. He was so bad ass and had the best blonde hair ever. It spiked up to one foot above his head. I have pictures if you'd like. He would also draw for me, and meow at me from down the street.

To top it off, he may or may not have been a distant relative and that kind of excited me. Good thing we weren't actually engaged or that might be a problem.

I miss that town, however, I am reluctant to go back. It is the strangest town.

There are no homosexuals.

No lesbians, no gays, no threesomes, nothing. It is like the twilight zone or a bad movie.

I come from New York City. You cannot fool me. Hop out of the closet and onto the bandwagon. It must be no fun stuck in that small closet, in that small town.

I will visit one day soon, to find everything just the same, crazy just the way I like it, and beautiful just the way I remember it.