THE MALE CHAUVINIST - An Erotic Autobiography

Part Two - X

Telematic Interlude 1

Pier: Hello Antonia! Where are you from?

Antonia: Castelnovo, you?

Pier: Scandiano

Antonia: So you're a writer...

Pier: Yes

Antonia: Listen, are you in Reggio for a coffee today? I'm in the car right now... I don't have much time to stay here.

Pier: What time?

Antonia: I'll be in Reggio until 18:00.

Pier: Ahahah... but it's already 17:25! I might be able to make it to the area by 19:00. Or why don't you come over to Scandiano?

Antonia: No. I'm not moving from Reggio. Max by 18:00.

Pier: Sorry, I can't make it before 19:00 If I had known earlier...

Antonia: Opportunities need to be seized on the fly, otherwise what's the point of being on these dating apps?

Pier: Yes, but this seems a bit excessive... I'd gladly see you, but you know... I have a life too

Antonia: Poor thing.

Pier: ???

Antonia: Because you're the one who keeps Italy going, right?

Pier: You are really out of line. User blocked.

X

As you can see from the previous Messenger chat, psychos abound on dating apps (the one that connected me with Antonia, specifically, is Facebook Dating). Not that I make heavy use of these apps; I prefer live interactions, but sometimes I take a look...

I don't know what's wrong with the women from Reggio Emilia, though. I've never found another place in the world with a concentration of psychopaths as high as in Reggio Emilia. Take Irene...

Irene is just a few years younger than me, her father is a big shot in the PD (Democratic Party). To spite him, she married a truck driver (from whom she separated after having a child) and works in a bar managed by Chinese — meaning, her boss is Chinese. At twenty, she was stunningly beautiful, could have easily been a model, and she's still a good-looking woman. That's why I start visiting her at work.

"Let's have a beer sometime," she says. It's her idea, and I'm all for it, so we plan for the weekend. But then she stands me up. Okay.

The second time is even weirder. I say, "Come to my place for dinner." And Irene: "Gladly!" But then, in the mid-afternoon, after I've already splurged at the fishmonger for sea bass (wild, not farmed) and chilled the Traminer, she sends me a message on WhatsApp: "I can't make it. Sorry." I call her, asking if everything's okay. She says yes, everything's fine, except she can no longer go out with men because she had a bad experience. I push a little, remind her we've known each other since we were kids, assure her she can trust me, that with me there won't be any surprises. "And we have so many friends in common!" "You're right," she says melodramatically, "but you weren't the one who ended up in the hospital with a red code because your ex beat you to a pulp." I'm clearly shocked, so I stop insisting, "Don't worry, we'll see each other when you feel up to it, when you've gotten over this bad experience." From what I understand, the ex who beat her isn't the truck driver husband but another guy she dated later.

In short, Irene stands me up not once, but twice. One afternoon, I find her in a seedy bar near the station where I stopped for a coffee. There she is, tipsy, guzzling discount beer with two stoners of the worst kind, about fifty-fifty-five, with Viking beards and few hairs on their head, visibly drunk, and apparently quite dirty. She greets me with lots of flirting.

"I don't want to take your precious time if you're with Ragnar Lothbrok," I say venomously.

And Irene: "Oh no, don't worry, that's my ex and the other is his friend, come, I'll introduce you!"

"Your ex? Not the one who beat you?"

And she, a bit embarrassed: "Yes, him."

Well, that just disgusted me. I mean, what's going through her head?

"Come! I want you to meet him!" She even insists.

"I'd rather not."

"Don't judge him harshly, you don't know who he is." And she says "who he is" as if the ex were some great man, a genius artist with many flaws but also a delicate sensitivity, someone who stands a cut above us mere mortals.

"Goodbye, beauty," I tell her, and I leave.

And Irene isn't the only psycho I've dealt with in Reggio Emilia. There's another one, Elisa, whom I'll talk about elsewhere, because I had a relationship with her. She was head over heels for a guy who made it clear to her that he was seeing other women, some of whom were prostitutes. The guy was on coke, and who knows what else. Yet, she continued to see him, to run to him as soon as he snapped his fingers. And it wasn't even a fling, Elisa, quite the opposite, she was a smart girl. Not to mention Delia, she beats them all when it comes to psychopathy. I'll dedicate a whole book to her in another work. Poor me.

I've noticed that the age range between thirty-five and forty-five is the worst, from this point of view. They're all psychos. To find a non-psycho female in Reggio Emilia, you have to be under thirty or over fifty.

In any case, after this latest moral slap (meeting Irene in that shabby bar) I get really down. It's just not possible that in Reggio Emilia all the women are like this, all psycho or frigid to the point of pain, and it's a damn shame to have such a nice house in such a crappy place, especially in this season, with biting cold and humidity that could make you grow gills, goddammit, not to mention the red-alert level of smog and toxic fumes, since the Po Valley is a gas chamber, it's well known. So, who makes me stay here? Right, who makes me? In short, I decide this city doesn't deserve me, I go home and pack my bags. It's decided. Tomorrow morning I'm off to Rome, to my Trastevere, where the music is different, especially since winter is closing in with its thick fogs, the sky darkening by the minute, and in a few weeks, it won't be much fun around here anymore. No, no, better to split while I can, while I have the drive and the anger.