a little blue bag

as i wrote previously, i met this italian lawyer, 35 years old, on one of my first days here, and in the last two months we have been to club openings, restaurants etc together. i would say he is comparable to mr. big, only with more hair gel, more arrogance (if such a thing is even possible), and with a bad case of undiagnosed adult ADD. Despite this, my friends and i always have fun going out with him, he has a private table at the clubs and is generally funny and shows us a good time, not to mention being very generous to us. now i know what you're thinking, and i thought it too: everything comes with a price tag. and yet, for this guy, the price tag is not that horrible thing one would automatically assume. he has always been very respectful and has not made an overt "moves" on myself, alex or sara. since we are not the only girls that he takes out with him, after careful analyzation i think the reason he has been so generous to us and eager to treat us to special occasions in perugia is because he likes/needs to surround himself with people. maybe with young, beautiful girls....as pompous as that sounds. we also are very accommadating of his needs, such as listening to his very long speeches, stories about his life, and his interests. We all put in effort to engage him in conversation, and give him the opportunity to talk about his favorite subjects, which we are well versed on by now. Give and take, I suppose.
It should go without saying, of course, that this relationship is a friendship , as the guy is 35 years old and all i can think is that is the age my dad was when i was born. whooa. friendship might be a stretch however because while i know a lot about him, he knows absolutely nothing about me. this is for several reasons: 1. it is obvious he prefers to speak about himself, so i let him 2. i learned early on he cannot remember anything i tell him anyway, for example, that i hate red meat.....which for the life of him he cannot remember and often orders it for me in restaurants when i cannot read the italian and he must decide for me. ugh. 3. i have realized that the less he knows about me, the better, because for this kind of ADD guy who bores easily, it is better to remain mysterious and keep him guessing, that way my friends and i can keep enjoying the perks of being his guests everywhere. manipulative? yes. but i feel very little shame as i view it as a girls perrogative and frankly, by hanging out with 20 year old girls, he is asking for it. (although since most people do not get married in italy until 40 because it takes around 7 years for a divorce so everyone is very circumpsect about tying the knot, it is very common to see 35 year olds in the clubs, and normal for older men to hang out with younger women. or that is what he keeps telling us.)

anyway, the point of this post was to chronicle a very amusing situation that occured. the second week that this guy and i met, we were hanging out in a disco with our respective friends, and he asked me when my birthday was. i said "july 13th!" but i guess over the loud techno he did not hear me correctly and thought i said "july 30th" which turns out is his birthday too! i did not realize the mistake until weeks later when he said july 30th, and actually, did not feel compelled to correct him. as i said, it is actually very amusing how little he knows about me. And so the other day, this guy tells me how he has another present for me. and out comes the little blue bag. known to every girl as the tiffany bag. oh boy. high stakes. i open the box, and in it is a silver necklace with a round circle, that says CF, 30 julio.

yes. i now have an engraved tiffany necklace with someone elses birthday on it. this is one for the books. oy vey.