WHEN IN DOUBT, DUCK

They call it an Indian summer. Almost October and you are still going around Rome wearing a tank top and denim shorts. One of your closest friends decides to take advantage of the amazing weather and organize a casual dinner on her terrace. Just a couple of female friends. The main activity of the evening is the metropolitan version of birdwatching, neighbourwatching. Your friend Bee has an intriguing neighbour living in the ground floor apartment, a handsome photographer. She noticed him at the beginning of the summer, he seemed to be away quite often but when in Rome he would spend almost every night at home alone, reading and smoking in the garden. Bee had the chance to finally introduce herself when a small plant of mint she had just bought happened to fall in the middle of his garden. Accidentally of course, not dropped intentionally, that’s what she kept repeating to him, in her profusion of excuses mixed with uncontrollable giggling. After he had decided that she was probably not an ax murderer but just a cute and naif young female neighbour, he invited her in for coffee, telling her casually but at once that he was seeing someone. Bee wondered when and where but decided not to ask, she was actually even more delighted with the idea of having a male friend whom she could just chat and chill with, living two floors below her. He invited her for coffee in his house a couple of times more, and Bee was fully satisfied by this sort of comradeship between neighbours. But maybeHe he wasn’t. He would confide in her, he would talk about his girlfriend, how amazing she was and everything but he kept saying that he was not the type for a stable relationship, not with his job, not in that current phase of his life. Then she invited him to her place and they spent a lovely night together, staring at the stars, amicably drinking and chatting, nothing else, and he really seemed to be enjoying himself: he kept laughing and telling that she was totally crazy. And then for a while they did not see each other, she knew he was at home, but he always seemed in a rush, busy busy busy.

“The signs are clear” you proclaim, “If a man says you are crazy, he wants to go to bed with you. If a man likes to talk to you about his sentimental troubles, he wants to go to bed with you. If a man plays hide and seek, he wants to go to bed with you.”

You are all wondering why he hasn’t shown up yet tonight, after all you are the birds. And, of course he can sense that you are not just drinking red wine over there, but you are there talking about him, watching him from above. There is only one thing to do: whistle. He looks upward. Some hopping, some chuckling, and then you all quickly duck behind the terrace wall.