Bergamo Misadventure

We met in February at my local bar and bonded over mixed martial arts (MMA). I like kick-boxing and you are a “professional” Muay Thai fighter. We drunkenly sparred, I knocked you over then you me. You sent me Lenny Kravitz’s “Again” as a song to me and begged to see me again. A few days later you came to my home and brought me Rolos. You made me laugh and were very sweet. Soon we became intimate and we would sit cuddled together on my sofa for hours.

You said I gave you sanctuary from your crazy ex-girlfriend who you were still living with in the flats above the shops next to the pub. You told me she nagged you all the time and had a shrill voice that went right through you. You said my voice was soft and soothing.

You told me you were going home to Italy in March and asked me to come see you many times, occasionally you asked me to move there with you. You then changed your arrangements to go back in May to spend more time with me. You told me you would find it difficult to leave me because I was already in your heart. I fell for this – English men just do not speak this way to women – they maintain the stiff upper lip that we are famous for.

One thing bothered me though – you kept telling me that it was important that when I came to visit you in Bergamo that I didn’t tell people when we met as you didn’t want your ex-girlfriend to find out. You told me it was out of “respect” for her because you were still sharing living space at the time. You didn’t need to tell me, just ask, but really I wouldn’t say anything to anyone about it anyway, it just wouldn’t occur to me. Not then. By then tenth time you mentioned this I became annoyed – what about my feelings – do they not count? What about your respect for me or me for myself? You come to my home, we laugh, we are intimate, we are sharing our lives slowly with each other, getting to know one another. Then you make me feel like your ex-girlfriend’s feelings are more important than mine? We argue I tell you to leave, I try to explain but the language barrier makes it so difficult and frustrating. Or you choose not to understand because it does not suit you.

We don’t speak for weeks and then we come together again. Against my better judgement I put it down to language difficulties and miscommunication. You never mention your ex-girlfriend again. But all is still not well, now you are saying we are “just friends” but we can still have sex. OK I am single, you are single, you are leaving soon. Why lose our hearts?

The month of May soon comes and you leave. Once you are settled in back home you ask me to come visit you in Bergamo. I have never visited Italy before and I am excited that I will not only get to visit but will also have a guide and we can explore outside of the city too. I look at the prices for a long weekend and it will cost about £400 – it is a lot of money to spend for a weekend. I price up some other options and 10 days will cost me £475. This is much better value for money and will give me more time to explore your home city. You tell me I am crazy, I tell you no, I am adventurous.

Soon your messages turn intimate once more, you tell me you miss my kiss that you wish you could kiss me now, and you ask if we can make love when I am in Italy, you say you want to wake up with me, to shower with me. Well a little light-hearted holiday romance too is OK by me. You tell me your mother would like to meet me when I am in Italy, that it is no big deal, she often meets your friends. I’m a little daunted, a difference in cultures no doubt, but OK.

Then you go quiet this week. I ask if everything is OK. You tell me you have been distracted and that you have a new girlfriend and that you cannot help when you will fall in love.

Hello!! I am coming to visit you in August 2015, you made these plans with me. Now it may not be an Italian thing but let me tell you. In England that is plain bad manners. You beg me to come visit you, you tell me it is important for you to show me your home city, that you want to make love to me. I spend my money on this and make all the travel arrangements and then you do this to me. Seriously?

Not only that it gets worse! You tell me your new girlfriend knows I am visiting and that she is OK with this. Did you ask me? You tell me you will still meet with me and that all is OK, not to worry. Not in my world!

Now you have treated me this way, I feel I owe you no further discretion. This is the last time you will treat me badly or disregard my feelings. We will never see or speak to one another again.

Did you tell your new girlfriend the truth about me and our plans together? She is very understanding if you did. I am assuming she in not Italian since you told me on numerous occasions that you don’t like Italian women and that you think they are all stupid; that they only talk about fashion and how they look. Again I thought you were rude to say this – who are you Albert Einstein? It is utterly boring to hear you drone on about playing on your Playstation and how much fun it is.

The next day after little sleep and conversations with my friends I tell you I don’t want to come to Italy any more. I don’t want to spend my time with someone who has no regards for my feelings, from one human to another (I am certain of this now), or value in the money I have spent because he doesn’t earn his own way in life and therefore understand. I don’t want to feel like I am now an inconvenience to you and that you want to rush off to see your new girlfriend all the time. Or sit there politely being ignored while you text away to each other. I think it is only fair to ask you to return the funds I have spent so that I can holiday elsewhere.

A person with good manners and empathy would have agreed to this no problem. You told me you still expected me to come and that you don’t have the money to refund me or think that you should.

We argue again. I tell you your mother spoilt you too much as a child and should have smacked your bottom more. Perhaps then you would have better manners. You have a half-brother and sister that you have little to do with. You don’t like them. May I suggest you build a relationship with them to stop you behaving like a spoilt only child? Trust me it is for your benefit (and the World’s) in the long run.

Also at 32 years of age (33 on 26 August) you really need to stop living off your parents and get yourself a job. Playing on your Playstation every day is further warping your mind from reality.

Being a “professional” Muay Thai fighter in Italy obviously doesn’t pay as much as you insinuate it does either. You won a fight in March and you can live off the prize money for a whole year. It is only July and you do not have the money to reimburse me. Or did you lie and in fact lose in March? You get 1,000 euros a month from the father you hate in “sponsorship” for your “profession”. I’d say this is spending money you are given and you try not to sound like a work shy sponger to people in the adult world. You hate him so much but are happy to let him buy you a car and an apartment also for your return to Italy (but you are living with your mama for now until it is ready, if this is the truth). Wow.

You don’t want to take responsibility for your behaviour towards me? You want to put the blame on me by telling me I am reacting like a child. Me the child? Really? What planet are you from?

My stomach today.

That was laughable enough in itself but did you really just fat shame me by telling me I had let myself go to deflect any responsibility? Really? I mean I’ll admit I am not as toned as I would like and I lack a six pack but really – you are shaming me for this stomach? In fact, now I recall you once said to me you don’t eat sugar ever and that is why you have a stomach like yours and I have one like mine. I put this down to language (again) and that sometimes things can sound a little blunt when translated from one language to another. Now I know for certain you are just a truly vile person who rates himself far too highly.

Honestly, you are so vain. You look in the mirror obsessively and take photos of your body to send to me and ask me if I like your body. I am polite, I have manners. I don’t tell you what I really want to say about your body. My mother used to smack my bottom when I was younger for being rude. It was a lesson that serves me well now that I am an adult.

So why am I publishing this blog? Well I still have to visit Bergamo in August because I don’t want to just throw away £550 (I’ve had to add in the cost of transport to and from the airport now). I don’t have a rich mama or papa to bail me out, but even if I did I wouldn’t ask. You see, I have been financially independent since that age of 14 when I got my first Saturday job.

So now I will be on my own in a strange city, in a country whose language I do not speak with no one to guide me around or look after me (I’m in a private apartment not a hotel). I hadn’t planned for this and since the bombshell shock of this weekend (July 18 2015) I haven’t quite got my head around how I will get on. I have travelled alone many times before, I’m sure I will be fine.

However, I would like to appeal to the people in Bergamo whilst I am there to help me out whether you are native, British ex-pat or tourist. Show me how to travel around the city, help me get the right bus to do some sight-seeing. Tell me where to visit to get the best experience. Help me buy my ticket. Direct me when I am lost. Talk to me and laugh with me at my Bergamo misadventure or share your own tragedies with me and let’s laugh together. You will know who I am I will be on my own with the badge of this blog on my bag.

Most of all I ask you to restore my faith in Italian people and show me you are not all like this man/child. Who is he I hear you ask? I can tell you I toyed many times over whether to include his photos from Facebook and whether to name him here. In the end I decided that his name will never pass my lips again. If you know a person who told you that he had a woman he met when he lived in Manchester who is coming to visit, perhaps you will choose to name and shame him. Maybe then he will learn some empathy for someone other than himself. All I will say is that I won’t be eating your national dish any time in the near future; the name association has put me right off (I don’t mean pizza). I can confirm that I myself wish to remain anonymous publicly.

I would like to end by saying that I am a great believer in Karma. It is my personal belief that this man/child is due some. So if you hear that Karma has struck and has not been sleeping on the job post a comment here. It could be anything, like every morning he leaves his mama’s house and the car his papa bought him is covered in bird poo. His mama gave him a long overdue spanking and he couldn’t sit down for a week. Or somewhat unrealistically, he sneezed, his penis fell off and a pigeon ate it ;-). Seriously make me laugh people; because you can be certain I’m never going to cry over this.

Thank you for reading. I would be very grateful if someone would offer to translate this into Italian and maybe post in Italy. It would be really lovely if people there could look out for me and make me laugh this August.