Rocky terrain

So I hauled myself out of biscuit-induced stupor in order to accept a date. "A date?" I hear you cry! "This one doesn't hang around!" Before you start giving me old-fashioned disapproving looks let me explain myself.

A large part of the reason E and I are on a break is that I'm not sure I can marry him because I still feel young and want more experiences. This includes romantic experiences. This particular experience was offered to me on a plate so I decided to grab it with both hands, hoping that it could help me understand my feeling for E a bit more, or at the very least that I could have an interesting evening.

This was the kind of date everyone expected me to have when I arrived in Italy, when I flummoxed them all by hooking up with an Albanian pizza maker instead. Fabio is tall, good-looking, well-dressed and speaks passionately on a wide range of subjects from philosophy to architecture to Beethoven. He asked me many questions about myself and was charm personified. He made me a beautiful dinner and got me a bit tipsy on good wine.

Almost perfect. Almost. But (and you knew there had to be one) the thing was, he expected me to have an opinion on everything. And while I am not stupid, I am most definitely lazy and tend to acquire knowledge only if it finds its way to my white matter by accident. I knew I was in trouble from the start ("so Francesca, which is your favourite Renaissance city"? Errr..). I tried to blag it but the questions just got more and more specific and more ridiculous so that in the end when he asked me what my favourite Germanic names were, things came to a head. I couldn't contain myself any more and burst out laughing.

Fabio looked confused and hurt. "What's so funny? Are you making fun of me?"
"Yes!" at the sight of his outraged face I laughed even harder "I'm sorry Fabio, but you can't ask a girl out on a date and then interrogate her on which are the most rocky landscapes in England or if she prefers Germanic or Latin names"
Fabio looked put out "Well, I find it interesting".

So that was my first date in 3 years. I haven't seen Fabio since although he's been in touch. Only time will tell if my lack of knowledge of Britain's rocky landscapes is an unimpeachable barrier between us or if it is the start of something beautiful.