Spring 2021 really seems like an eternity ago, but I can still feel the heat between us, even if I try to ignore it.
One day after class two years ago, a friend asks if I want to check out this cool little bar in her Florentine neighborhood. With the chill and the rain outside, we sit for hours drinking and chatting non-stop. The guy that works there catches my attention–although we don’t really talk except to order drinks. I generally do not center men in my life, but I’m fixated. I sense an energy, an indescribable something. The intrigue is intense.
Fast forward a few weeks. Midnight curfew is still in place, and the same friend and I end up at the cool little bar again for basically the entire day. After many glasses of wine, the bar is closing, and he kindly offers to drive me home. Walking around after curfew is probably a bad idea. I accept. In my slight wine buzz, I’m not paying much attention to where we’re going. He starts to slow down, parks, gets out. I’m confused by the abrupt stop, but get out too and follow. Here we are, at 1:30 AM, in Piazzale Michelangelo overlooking the city, just the two of us, no one else. It’s so silent that we can hear the Arno flowing below. We could be in serious trouble if the police show up. It’s well past curfew, but, at this moment, the entire world disappears. It is magical. Now you may be thinking, “How romantic, he’s going to go in for the kiss.” But no. Niente.
He drops me off at my flat, and I’m dumbfounded. What was that? Did he feel it too? Am I imagining things? Maybe it’s just not that deep.
As the days go by, we begin chatting almost daily, but after weeks of back and forth and no offer of a date, I assume he’s not interested. Then late one night, he asks to stop by my flat “to say hello.” I’m freshly showered, getting ready to go to bed, but I agree. We sit in my garden, talking, and–out of nowhere–he kisses me. I’m completely shocked. He stops to apologize for his abruptness, but I enjoy it. It’s unbelievably sexy.
And so begins a six-month-long affair with my feelings that feels like an 8.5 magnitude earthquake. We burn for each other. “We’re like magnets”–his description.
But these feelings are doomed from the start. I tell only a few friends. He never verbally expresses how he feels about me or our situationship.
I eventually tire of this arrangement–despite being very physically satisfied. I’m much too deep of a person to forgo any emotional or spiritual connection when what I really want is to hear “I love you.”
I realize that he is content with his life, and there’s no room for me, at least in the meaningful way that I’d like. But this isn’t some infatuation story with a sad ending. I couldn’t be more grateful for the experience: it has shown me the depth of my ability to love and to care. Love isn’t something that I do, it’s something that I am.
