Fessacchione!!

I refuse to consider my recent behavior as something that spurted out of a deep feeling of desperation. But given the recent circumstances of my personal life, hell, I am lonely and I am on the rebound. And that god-forsaken holiday is coming up in exactly two weeks.

My ex and I broke up in December. It was a turbulent one-year relationship, and I think it took only one month into the long-distance bit for me to realize that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't going to work out. Even though I kept the status attached until December, my heart was out of the relationship at least three months prior. So by mid-January, after two weeks of recouperating back home in Texas, I already adopted the "single-and-ready-to-mingle" mindset.

My first weekend back in Japan I went to my first gaijin (foreigner) party in town. It felt so liberating knowing that I had the freedom to flirt with any guy there, given that they weren't already taken or gay. I ended up "hooking up" with a guy that night (or whatever the kids call it these days), but I think the prospect of "hooking up" again in the future has been kaput as of last weekend. Basically, at least what I gathered from our second meet-up, was that he must've been really drunk the first night. Last weekend he was sober, and yeah, he hasn't contacted me since. [sigh] Bummer.

And then there's Ronnie Quintarelli, my first gaijin friend in Tokuyama. He's an Italian race car driver (2004 F3 champion) whom I had met at a restaurant in Kudamatsu back in November. He's also fucking HOTT.... and funny.... and interesting to talk to, but he's also a dangerous mix of Italian blood and professional race car driver. That easily translates to a modern-day, woman-seducing Casanova and bonafide player.

Every bone in my body tells me that there's nothing in this guy for me except for eye candy. Everybody warns me that I'm possibly not the only girl he's seeing. So I have no earthly idea why the hell I keep going out with him.

Sort of.

Ronnie gives me attention. He calls me every now and then and he even bothered to send me e-mails and Christmas greetings over the holidays. Ok, so maybe calling it attention is an overstatement, but I find it flattering enough that he would even give me the time of day. For pete's sake, it's not every day I have an exotic European man asking me out.

We went out for dinner tonight to WaraWara (sp) in the "downtown" area. I've been there maybe three times before and just the other day, I got aquainted with one of the waitresses, Kaori, after bumping into her on the street. Apparently, she's the only waitress who speaks English because whenever I go to her restaurant (everytime with other foreigners) we get shoved in the same corner, her corner. So when she saw us come in the restaurant, she seemed so surprised to see me with him. She actually waited on his table when he went there last Sunday, and I could instantly tell by the glimmer in her eyes that she fancied him. She could barely even mutter the question "are... you... guys... together?"

No, we're not together. We're not anything. But I'm still on a fucking date with Ronnie. I think sometime during the middle of dinner, he forgot. He seemed so fascinated by the fact that she spoke some english (although I'm fully convinced it's only enough to take food orders) and the bastard even got distracted or possibly mesmerized by her cleaning up the table next to us. As a side note, she did take awfully long to wipe off the table... as if a fucking family of 8 with ADHD kids sat there and spattered sauce all over the table.

When he went to the till to pay the tab, she put on her best cutes-y , flirty, Japanese-y smile. Ugh, and the look he gave her in return. At that moment I wanted to take my super-kawaii keitai and bash her head in. No, I'm his Tokuyama woman, biatch.

This isn't like me, any of this. I've never fancied flirting/hooking up with guys I just met at bars. I don't date men who are sooooooooo obviously wrong for me. I would've never, ever in a million years tolerated a guy who had no shame undressing a woman with his eyes who doesn't happen to be me, during a date. And I definitely would've never bothered to get all fussed up over some petty exchange of flirtatious glances between a guy who I had no claim over and some chick.

So why did I allow him to drive me up one particular mountain that has one of those "spectacular views" of the city after dinner tonight? Because perhaps, yes, I was desperate for an ounce of affection and attention. I've also been quite lonely and... on the rebound. But most of all, recently, I've just been plain stupid and dumb.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Or fessacchione, idiot in Italian.