You can find anything on Tinder these days. Even spies!
During my usual 5 minutes of swiping a day, her profile catches my eye. She has very fair skin, jet-black hair, and light eyes, a faded tone between green and blue. 26 years old, she claims to be looking for a serious relationship.
Features of an Eastern European woman, with pronounced cheekbones and a strong jawline. Not your typical trophy doll, but a woman who could win Miss Ukraine and rip out your sternocleidomastoid with a Krav Maga move.
The photos have a rare taste, like those vintage artistic photos that Roberto, my lawyer, loves. Every single pose is deliberate, every body movement is an artistic gesture. You can tell she’s the artist, not the model.
The description is out of this world.
Uhm, it’s hard to make sense of it. Anyway, she’s hot, so I match her. I rewrite her description in other words to mimic the style and initiate contact, adding a couple of insights about her:
Well, the usual vague language to establish rapport: Tinder dating is hard work, but someone has to do it.
We chat casually for a bit, between commitments, and finally, I ask for Instagram and WhatsApp.
I try to figure out more about who I’m dealing with. She’s an artist, involved in the fashion world. She has a website in her name, showcasing all her work. Her Instagram profile is full of artistic photos where occasionally a bit of butt or a thigh gap appears. It’s a very mental, very constructed eroticism, the kind my friend Lella would like (I’m more into girls that sophisticated women call “vulgar,” barely hiding the highest degree of female envy possible).
I’m in no rush to meet her; my schedule is already pretty full of women. I want to see if, beyond the aesthetics, she’s worth it, if she’s someone with something extra, someone I might lose my head over.
We talk about relationships, encounters, love. She has a very strict routine, which includes daily gym sessions, Italian classes, and piano lessons. She speaks Italian very well, considering she’s been here for just over a couple of years. She’s Ukrainian, and she tells me she fled the war. I wonder if she had a boyfriend there before the war. If he’s still alive, forced by law to fight, while she’s here taking artistic photos and going on Tinder dates. I’ll remember to talk about her to the next misandrist feminist who talks about gender quotas and discrimination against women at work. I don’t dare ask her for details, though: seeing your country in flames must be an open, bleeding wound. I’ll find out later that after coming to Italy, she moved to a cold northern country for love, where she loved her man very much, supporting him even when he wanted to be with more women. Okay, let’s meet her 🙂
After a week of chatting, I invite her out. She gladly accepts but tells me she wants to go home early. I tell her I would have invited her to dinner, but if she has time restrictions, we can go for an aperitif. “No, no, don’t worry. I’ll wait for you.” Okay, we get the type: dinner and pick me up at my place.
Let’s clear something up right away.
I can’t stand the traditional scheme where the man courts, proves himself, makes grand gestures, and the woman – a new little princess – takes all the attention. I find that this traditional model, under the guise of gallantry, communicates some poisonous assumptions:
- The woman is the prize, the man has to earn her and/or buy her with gifts;
- The woman is valuable just for being herself. The man, on the other hand, is valued for what he does, gives, and owns.
- The man must demonstrate kindness, the ability to protect and care. Which would be fine with me, but it’s unclear why he has to do it right away, with a girl he doesn’t even know, regardless.
- The woman’s time is precious; if she agrees to go out with you, you have to buy her dinner. Which makes me laugh a lot, considering that company executives pay €1,000.00 an hour to talk to me.
I’m more for a co-investment model, where two people (regardless of gender) both give time and resources in the desire to get to know each other. I usually prefer to start with an aperitif, just so I don’t get stuck for an evening with someone I might not even like, and then reschedule for dinner (out or at my place). Of course, I offer, but because I’m the one inviting, not because I’m a man.
That said, you know me: you know I love to occasionally do the exact opposite of what I believe, to test different shades of reality or for fun. I’ve figured out how the Bond Girl thinks, so with her, I’ll go all in in a model totally opposite to mine. I’ll follow the Cicisbeo Game, in the style of the 18th-century gentleman who assisted the married noblewoman in personal matters (toilette, correspondence, shopping, visits).
I go to pick her up at her place. Of course, she’s late, so I get on YouTube to watch Gigi Proietti’s videos. And while I’m laughing heartily, she arrives. I turn around, damn, she’s gorgeous!
She’s incredibly elegant, dressed in a very unique outfit, of great style, combining playful flounces with essential and serious lines. Her gaze is like that of an alpine lake: very cold, pure, deep. Very unique: distant, as if focusing two and a half meters behind your head. She looks at you, but it’s as if she’s not looking at you, as if she’s elsewhere. This gives her a hieratic expression, of someone who notices the hidden dimension of existence, a bridge to another world, distant and mystical.
And she’s also hot: under the flounces of the dress, you can glimpse a toned physique.
Cicisbeically, I get out of the car to greet her and open the door for her. Her beauty takes my breath away and compresses my chest. I try to pretend nothing’s happening, talk to her about this and that, and take her to a restaurant near her place.
The usual scene, she enters, the waiters are startled, they give us the best table, all eyes are on her. We share our lives. She’s used to men trying to impress her, I do the opposite: I try to make her qualify, to see if she has characteristics that interest me beyond beauty. At the same time, I talk about my weaknesses, my difficult moments, the things I still need to improve. Always in a light, authentic way, joking a lot. She opens up and starts talking about her difficulties. She feels lonely, can’t find a man she really likes. She has little regard for Italian men: they promise the world with words, but in reality, they pay very little attention.
I ask her how many times she’s had a bad experience with Italian men. She says many times.
“Well, then the problem isn’t the men, it’s you.”
She looks at me, intrigued.
“The first time can be bad luck. The second, a coincidence. But if by the third, fourth, fifth time… if all the men you meet are wrong… it can’t be bad luck. You’re doing something wrong.” .
Finally, her gaze focuses on me. She looks at me. She sees me. She’s there with me.
I insist “You see, there’s a cultural theme here. You keep expecting courtship from an Eastern man, forgetting that you live in Italy. If a man gave 50 roses to an Italian woman he just met, she would think of him:
- that he’s a loser;
- that he needs to pay/buy a woman to be with her;
- that he’s a low-value man with few alternatives.
Moreover, the woman would feel offended, objectified, as if the man wanted to buy her. And the gesture would seem insincere: an Italian man doesn’t give 50 roses unless it’s an anniversary and after 5 years of marriage.”
She understands but struggles to move away from the model of man she grew up with.
Her gaze is now different: she looks at me with complicity and attraction. She’s there with me, present, vulnerable, and powerful. These hotties are all the same: just treat them for what they are – just normal people like anyone else – just hold your ground, gently point out the nonsense they say (with the same affectionate and teasing tone you’d have with your little sister) and… they come down from their pedestal and get fired up for you.
I get up and sit next to her, cuddle her and tease her a bit.
She opens up even more. She tells me that for over a year she was… a SPY.
Yes, while she was in Sweden, she collaborated with the local intelligence to extract information from sensitive subjects. Normally, I’d consider it a probable tall tale, but she gives me details and is very credible: after all, of all the people I know, she’s the closest to a Bond Girl. She tells me about some adventures, not much, but… dear reader, I can’t tell you anything. You wouldn’t want the next articles to be written from behind bars, would you?
She’s funny and entertaining, I tell her that – if chemistry develops – I’d love to take her on a boat with me to Sardinia, at the end of August.
We laugh and joke. We’re the last couple in the restaurant. I invite her to have a drink at my place, but she refuses, reasoning that ” I know myself, once I’m at your place, I wouldn’t hold back. I’d rather we get to know each other first “.
Alright, fair enough. The sexual tension cuts through the air, but I take her home, chatting pleasantly. She plays me some of her tracks on Spotify, her artistic productions created by sampling the desire-filled messages men send her via WhatsApp. Something like Magnifico, indeed… I can’t help but appreciate it. But I confess I feel jealous of these guys drooling over my Bond Girl!
On the way back, I get an idea: let’s take a step in her direction, give her roses, maybe she’ll finally understand that we both need to meet halfway.
I order 50 beautiful roses, the preserved kind, to be delivered to her home, with a note that reads:
A fragrant reminder of three moments:
my gentle touch on your skin;
your gaze, true, unveiled, intense, granted to very few, fixed on mine;
the rest of the world fading away.
The next day she receives the roses, writes to me all happy, and moves up the dinner we were supposed to have together.
After this step in her direction, I expect her to take a step in mine. Specifically, I’d like her to come to dinner at my place. Not because we necessarily have to sleep together, but because I want an intimate place to get to know her better, without waiters and various patrons. A place to cuddle her, on the couch, with a glass in hand.
Yeah, right! “I don’t do those things“.
Honestly, this lack of trust annoys me. It makes me feel rejected. Oh well, I’ll look for a seafood restaurant as far away from my place as possible.
Like Barney from HIMYM, I also have a guy for everything. For restaurants, my guy is my dear partner Tommi: a stylish lord of the Milan elite, a lover of the pleasures of the table, elegance, and conviviality.
The great thing about Tommi is that you can make the most absurd requests, combining budget, location, quality of cuisine, and area… he’ll always have three great restaurants to recommend. I give him a precise brief: Excellent seafood, in the Isola area, unpretentious appearance, even a bit shabby and down-to-earth. You won’t come to my place? I’ll choose a homely and cozy restaurant.
We have a nice evening. After dinner, I take her straight home. She’d like to have a drink somewhere, but I’m tired.
The next day she writes to me, I’m cold and distant, a bit annoyed.
She tries to get my attention. She posts the story with the roses. She writes to me that she can’t stop admiring them. I take the opportunity to clarify my position on the necessary co-investment during the getting-to-know-you phase:
Well, my friend Lella might say I was a bit of a hysterical diva. I remain convinced of my positions.
I invite her out a third time. I ask if she prefers outside or at home. Of course, she prefers outside, so “we can enjoy the evening without thinking about the dishes to wash.”
Yeah, the dishes… and anyway, I have a dishwasher and a maid! but whatever.
Coincidentally, a work commitment forces me to cancel the dinner.
She waits for a new invitation from me.
It doesn’t come.
She contacts me again, we talk about this and that, and finally, she asks what I’ve decided to do for the holidays.
And here comes out all the Sicilian in me:
me: “I’m going on a boat. but obviously, I’m not even suggesting it to you: if it’s too soon to go to dinner at my place, let alone go on vacation together.”
her: no, no, the boat is fine, the house isn’t.
Yeah, right!
At this point, almost anyone would have insisted a bit on seeing her, sleeping with her, and then disappearing.
But I don’t want to waste time and I don’t sleep/start relationships with girls whose values I don’t share.
Goodbye, Bond Girl! Life’s too short to waste time with you.
Next!
