COMPORTAMENTARIO – Episode 1: NEVER DRINK AND TEXT

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Flan

“Let’s meet at the Plaza,” that’s what you say to your friend Miele on Sunday. You are not going there of course, you are going somewhere else, where the food is homemade and good, to a typical Roman trattoria, with no velvety wall paper on the walls. You think it’s witty and smart – to meet at the Plaza – one of your little diversions that make you feel like the main character of a seedy adventurous novel. Your friend Miele is cute and sexy, she doesn’t have to pretend like you, she really looks like the character of an erotic comic book. She gets off her bike and walks with you toward the restaurant. “So, what are you up to?” she asks. Nothing much really, but you decide to tell her about your latest fixation, a writer you fancy. The guy doesn’t even know your real name, although you’ve been out on a date. She doesn’t understand. “How can he not know your name?”.It is Friday’s fault, not yours. You are referring to that song, the one by the Cure: It’s Friday and you’re in love. Your tender, frivolous and tipsy, racketydackety weekend scenario normally starts on Friday. The usual routine is an exhibition opening, or a social event of some kind, followed by an aperitivo, followed by another drink, and then another one, and a next until you find yourself happily jumping up and down right in the middle of some dance floor, chatting up whoever comes near you. (Your friend Lu swears she has seen you having a full conversation with a toilet roll once.) And when you arrive home you contact randomly three or four people on Facebook, you think it’s romantic, you value these texts as literary epistolary exchanges. One of these contacts is the writer, whom you have spotted at the exhibition earlier on. He replies immediately, both annoyed and amused. You decide to meet at a wine bar the next day, and although you know one or two things about him, the only thing he knows about you is that you enjoy contacting strangers when you’re drunk using a nickname. Miele shakes her head and mutters “You have the Madame Bovary’s syndrome” – and she looks at you sternly- “There are rules, you know. Let me remind you. The first rule is of course: Never drink and text.” And after a plate of clams spaghetti, some calamari and a coffee, she makes you promise not to text him again, but to wait for him to contact you this time. When you talk to her again it’s on the phone – you are lying in bed reading a brand new hardcover book. It’s time for your confession: you have texted him again and seen him as well. And why, she asks. I have this urge, you explain, to see other people’s houses. She says you are incurable. And to defend yourself you add: “You know, I got a signed copy of his latest novel. No dedication, though… He has forgotten to ask my name”.