1.Yesterday I met a girl Yesterday, in a pub where you can dance Latin, I met a girl. My friends precede me. They go to a table and say hello. At the table, two guys and three girls. I salute two girls and the two guys. “Hello”. “Hello”. “Nice to meet you, Miguel”. “Francesco, nice to meet you”. “Joaquine”. “Nice to meet you”. “Nice to meet you, Lisa” a girl. “Nice to meet you”. “Nice to meet you, Lliana” another girl. “Nice to meet you”. The girl that I did not greet is Her. Her name is Naiara, as I’ll discover later while she talks with my friend Jose. Naiara is beautiful, of a beauty you realize it suddenly. Of a beauty that asks your reverence. My friend Alicia sits next to her, and I am sitting along with Alicia. My friend Alicia moves a little, and I think I see in the corner of my eyes that Naiara looks at me. I turn toward her. She looks at me! Could it be? I try to see if she responds to my glances again. I turn toward her again. She looks at me! I want to see if she lingers, with her eyes when she crosses my eyes, or if she turns them away. I look at her. We look each other … She lingers. Throughout the evening I wait for the moment when I exchange glances with Naiara. Time passes, my friend gets up, I get up, She gets up. I sit back and look at the same point to the runway, sipping my liquor with licorice. She is two steps ahead of me standing, looking at me every now and again, and smiles at me. Time passes, and I don’t say anything. As usual, I can not make the first move. As long as.. She approaches the edge of the bench where I was leaning with my back to the table, watching the couples dancing and says: “Excuse me?” “Yes?” “May you..?” Pointing behind me. I turn and I see a pile of coats. Well, approach! “You need something?” “I’ll take it to you” “Yes thanks” “Tell me, what do you need?” Smile. Smile. She says: “The Overcoat. You know, I’m cold “ “… You cold?” I take her coat and give it to her, still smiling. “Fuc.ing shyness,” I think to myself. “Sorry, you can give me also the handbag please?” Well, another opportunity to hear her voice. Come on, do not be silent, do not take the handbag and that’s it. Do something, try to talk! “Is it this?” “Yes” “Here. Hold it” Again in silence. Exchange of glances. They fill my heart. But then… We tried to cross our glances again, and then maybe start to talk a little ‘longer. We were looking for moments when we could exchange a smile. The fact is that already “here” I was in trouble. Because she was looking at me, and I was enchanted and happy .. but then why I was turning my gaze? So .. I take courage, I fix my glance. As if she had a radar, suddenly turns to me and responds to my eyes. I’m going to turn my head in a shot, as usual. Even before I think about the reason not to do it … But my brain comes back, I block my neck, and I keep my eyes on her. We smile. Joy. Ok, now should I tell something? .. Nothing. .. I get up. I go to sit on the usual bench. Five minutes pass … She is on my side. We are close, we are always close. Always. As usual, I turn toward her, she turns toward me, we look eachother. Smile. And silence. I turn, she turns, we look, smile. And silence. Up to that .. “Ei you” A guy calls. “Yes?” Naiara responds politely. “Come here”. I do not understand much about what’s going on, perhaps she knows him, maybe the guy needs something … Then the guy insists that Naiara comes close to him, but she stays and the guy gets closer and says… “Is he your husband?” Pointing toward me. “Yes,” she says. What’s up? He puts me in the middle. He asks if I was her husband. “Yes, he is my husband.” I hear her saying. Ei! Maybe I understand it. He is the annoying-drunk- guy who is bothering Her. She now wants me to help Her… I have the opportunity to know her .. But what a coincidence: the classic movie scenes. Naiara and me we look eachother and smile. He asks me: “Is she your wife?” I look at her. I wait to receive from her the permission to answer that she is my wife. She nods. So I answer: “Yes” “Yes, she is my wife” proudly. He continues: “She’s beautiful’. I stand up (all the above I did while sitting). “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life” says the guy. I look into Naiara’s eyes and I say: “It’s true”. She smiles at me. However, the guy has to go, he bothers us. Now he disturbs us, we can say that me and Naiara have knew eachothers…. “Really she is your wife?” “Yes. Yes, she’s my wife”. Pause. “What’s your name?” I interrupt him, changing subject. He looks lost. “What’s your name?” I continue. “Taurus” “Taurus?” Surprised. “Yes I am from Belgium. I live in Belgium.” But what hit it. “Yes?” “Even you’re not from here.” But what hits it. “Yes, I come from Italy.” “Italy?” Chatter. “You already know what you want?” “What?” “You already know what you want?” But what does that mean? “I did not understand.” “Y.o.u k.n.o.w. a.l.r.e.a.d.y w.h.a.t d.o y.o.u w.a.n.t?” Embarrassment. But what the fuck he wants? “What do you mean man?” “To drink. I can buy you a drink?” Aaaah. “No thanks, I’ve drunk, I thank you. You’re so kind.” Smiles. Smiles. From now get out man. “Ciao pal.” And he goes away. “Bye. Beautiful .. is not she? Beautiful. You’re lucky you, but really you’re the husband? “ “Yes I am the husband” Keep going. “You’re lucky you, you’re lucky” Go away! “Bye.” “Ciao.” We are just me and Naiara. We look eachother a little embarrassed. We are now entitled to start a conversation. “Thanks” she tells me. I smile. I can not get out of the embarrassment still. By instinct: “That was embarrassing. Fuck ” And almost immediately I regret having said fuck. No vulgarity. However, it’s fine, the honesty-way. It’s no point in pretending, I was embarrassed. Better to be honest. “But I am afraid, he looks at me still” “No, be quiet. It’s all right” But what about a girl who tells you so? I do not know what to say. “You want to go outside to smoke?” She asks me, ’cause she probably had seen me before going to smoke out with my friend. “Yes” I offer her a cigarette. And we go out. Taurus, I know that follows us with his eyes. “But you’re not from here” “No, I am on holiday to visit my friends I met in Erasmus last year. I am Italian” “Oh beautiful” I do not know what to say. In my head I start to think about when I went to a farm to trim .. and I happened to walk in the walk along the rows, in the mud, with my huge-rubber boots. And suddenly I get worse. The embarrassment turns my sentences in monosyllables. “I study psychology” “Psychology” “I have finished bachelor and now I want to make a Master in Developmental Psychology” “How nice” “I like to work with children” “Beautiful children” I say this whit the face of a person dreaming. Finished smoking the cigarettes we come back inside. The rest of the evening, takes place in the plot of the first part, except that at least I dance. With Alicia. And with a girl who celebrated her birthday that night. Eighteen. What a wonderful feeling, feel that body of fresh eighteen, fresh, soft and delicate moving sensually under my hands … But this is another story. Back to my seat I am close to Naiara. We are always close. At the end of the evening we say goodbye. “And when you leave?” “The 2nd or 3d” “Oh I’ll see you again” “Yess” She gives me a kiss, and goes away. She is beautiful. She is probably the type that one has to make a fight to win. While I was with that guy, Taurus, I thought: “What do I do?”, I felt a single basic instinct, one solution: “beating him”. I felt like an animal, which must win his female. “The only thing to do is fighting. We want the same woman “I thought. “Here you have to engage the fight and who wins will conquer her.” And what if I lose? Easy to lose, I am anxious and sometimes I loose my mind, and when it happens I behave in a strange way, I could lose even with a child. Then I thought about something. And I tried to keep this awareness firm for the entire evening: “It isn’t that I must conquer her. She is the one who must choose. “ Come on, it’s not as among the animals! We have the same instincts, yes, but it’s different. We must not clash head to head, horns against horns, to win the female. Among us if a woman does not want you, simply does not want you. Well, then, it’s clear. ….? Yes…But.. I still didn’t understand if it is possible making a girl not chose you even if she wants to chose you. 2. The number is inside the flower Me, my friend Jose and a friend of my friend Jose. we smoke a cigarette outside the club. I’m thinking about Naiara, I hope she will come tonight. Tonight I will definitely talk more. I will try to know her better, and I will invite her to go out tomorrow. I turn around. She is here. I freeze myself. So beautiful! She’s with two girls and two boys. One should be the one of the last time..Miguel. I guess. Approach. She looks at me from afar. “Hello”. I mouth while my right hand moves following my voice. I feel in a teenager movie and I regret it immediately afterwards. She comes. “Hello” “Hello beautiful” We kiss. “How are you?” “Well….Good.” We stare, we smile. And I am silent. They line up at the ticket office. Me, my friend Jose, and the friend of my friend Jose we end the cigarettes and leave. I hear her saying: “Ah, you’ve already done the ticket?” Jose and his friend have already entered, so it’s addressed to me. I had already started walking, I pretend not to have heard, I do not even look back and I go inside. I was like a rat fleeing from the cat. I think that listening her talking made me already be excited. I enter. She enters. She sees me. And she comes sitting close to me. She sits close to me. I say nothing, as usual, we exchange glances, but I do not say anything. I can not think of anything to say, to tell her. An hour passes. I watch her dance with other people and I’m unreasonably jealous. I get up from my spot, twenty steps and I catch her up. I look at her. “May I?” I ask her, offering my hand. Always with nervousness and haste, I almost crippled the voice with emotion. Cut it short: I invite her to dance. I feel her breasts against my chest. It has a gorgeous body and I feel it moving under my hands. It’s beautiful, if I think I lose the rhythm. The song ends. I want to do another dance, I feel like a greedy child who ends the first ice cream and wants the second. “I do not know if we can, but we also do this?” “Yes, why not?” “I do not know, maybe you can’t dance in a row with the same person.” “No, no.” she calms me down. The other dance I do it completely silent. She did not say anything throughout the song. It ends too. We smile. She caresses my hips, so did I, and she says “Bravo.” I return to my niche. The friend of Jose is sitting next to me and strikes up a chat: “Attack along the side” and laughs. “What?” I smile. “Attack on the wing, then drop in center field” and laughs. Near me there is Jose, he laughs too. I turn toward him questioningly. “What does he say?” “Attack on the wing, .. with Naiara. Make little by little. As you are doing”. He answered. “Build on the wing in the sense that when a soccer team has a strong center field, it creates the game vertically and goes straight into the area to score. When it has not a strong center field it makes strong moves on the wing and then it crosses centrally. Then shoots to score”. Completed, the friend of Jose. That was cool. We laugh together. But another hour passed and I can not take any constructive action. I get up and go smoke with Jose. “I do not know what to do, I’m stuck” I say. “Why?” “Because I like her.” “But do not worry, just invite some other girl to dance … Have you seen Lisa?”. “No. I just want Her” “Fran do not do so. I tell you one thing: ‘women are all whores.’ You should not feel dependent. If they understand it then “they have your cock in their hands”. When they feel that they hold you in their hands, they will never choose you. But they will play with you. As with a nice-sweet-puppy. You have ceased to be a man. Look at me, I’ve been sleeping with a lot of women, not because I was an Adonis, but because I knew how to behave. I was making them laughing and I was sure of myself. Stay calm, do not be tense. You tense when you are together. I’ve noticed it.. You have to be calm. “ “I know.” “If you’re tense you become heavy. You make them run away. Stay calm. Furthermore she is not the only one tonight. There are a lot of girls tonight. “ He looked at me. “The fact is that It seems to me to do a wrong to Her.” I replied. And he, almost disgusted: “But what you say Fran?!” Yes it is. Because if Naiara is my She, even if she does not know, I depend on Her. It ‘s something that goes beyond the “dance” . Something that goes beyond that evening. If I depend on Her, she can not wait. I do not care anything about the others, and if I’m not with Her, it makes me sad. That’s why I get depressed: I can not stay with Her, and it makes me sad. Well, the evening continues as it began. Every time she approaches me and tells me something, I do not say anything. There is a growing embarrassment for my silent scenes. I was on stand-by. And there was no way to make me leave it. For the umpteenth time, I sit close to her, and she looks at me. I am silent. Spend some ‘quiet time. Suddenly … I think: “but come on, Jose is right, be quiet, do not be so tense, approach someone, and then if not her, will be another one ..” I turn, I tend to her, I’ve come up with something to say. I would like to ask Her something, anything .. actually I would have improvised. She, at that time, she turns away and asks for a thing to my friend Alicia. I disengage, and smooth out a little laugh of embarrassment. Perhaps it is better to have saved a few trivial consideration. She turns. I feel a Bachata and I ask: “Is there still time to do it?” “Yes” Let’s go dancing. Let’s dance, the song ends. No one of us say anything and we go ahead with dancing the second song as well. The second song ends, we look, we smile. I feel sad, going through yet another opportunity to speak, to make me interesting in her eyes, for the umpteenth time I’m doing dumb-show. “Want to smoke a cigarette” Latest ploy. “… I would be happy to, but there’s my brother, he does not know that I smoke” “Ah” then the other guy is her brother. I say nothing. Do I look like a demented from outside? Who knows what sort of faces I make. “Okay” How sad. Come on. Let’s insist a little further. What an embarrassment! Tell her about the number, tell her that you want to leave her the number to keep in touch and to plan a date for the following days. “Listen, before you go, do you want I leave my number to you so we can hear eachother? What do you say?” “Okay” Pffuu. What an effort. I’m going to sit. Alicia turns around and tells me: “It’s two o’clock. Now Latin ends” “Yes?” I’m surprised. So, in while, Latin will ends. “And then they put..?” I ask. Her: “Disco” Ooh! I do not know if I am more uncomfortable with Latin or with disco music. “And what do we do?” “We stay”. She winks at me. “Oh yes” I say and smile. What the fuck: from bad to worse. I get depressed with the disco, 60 percent of the time it happens. I’ve always felt uncomfortable and restrained in clubs. Well. I expect. On. First song from the disco. I do not dance. “Do not go to dance Fran?” “Later, Alicia.” Spend an hour, I am completely blocked. I do not dance. Arms folded and legs crossed, clear message of hostility toward the environment. I look Naiara dancing, every now, she turns toward me and we look eachother. I am sad and depressed. Lisa, the friend of Alicia and Jose, who I had met the day before, approaches me and she asks me to dance. I tell her I do not like. She insists, says it’s time to fool around a little. ‘ I get up. As I get up, Naiara sees me and waves me with her hand to go to her. I go there, like a dog follows the path to eat from the bowl. I start to dance around her, while I think that I would have embraced her and I would have danced with her clinging to my body. Passes a 10 minutes, and I find myself dancing awkwardly across the room. I slow down, slow down, slow down, I stop. I get sad. Again. I lean against the wall near the exit. I look again Naiara dancing. The friend of Jose gets near me. He is dancing and having fun. He keeps dancing and says: “No! I told you along the wing, along the wing. What do you do? You became the goal-keeper eventually? “He laughs roughly and walks away. Meanwhile, Naiara is with a guy with whom she seems to be quite familiar. She holds a drink that probably he gave to her. I spend almost an hour leaning against that wall and now I look into nothingness. At one point a girl leans against the wall next to me. I was already leaning against that wall. There was already me. I start to think. She seems uncomfortable and bored. We both are uncomfortable and bored in this environment. She is sensitive, like me. She thinks this dance is useless, as I think. Then it’s Her: It’s Her the girl who I have to meet is not Naiara, is this girl. A ten minute passes and I decide to approach her: “Excuse me, why you do not dance?” Shrug. “Don’t you like music?” Yes, I assume, she does not answer me “Me either.” I add. She says nothing. Perhaps, it’s sadder then me. “I should have a rope in the car, if you want we can hang together..” She does not grab it, looks me badly, and leaves. They spend another ten minutes, then Jose says to me: “Shall we go?” “Come on” I replied. I’m going to say goodbye to Naiara. “Hello, I’m leaving.” She looks at me smiling, maybe she’s thinking about the fact of the number. “It ‘s your boyfriend?” Pointing to the guy who offered her a drink. “No, no” “Listen, I’ll leave you my number?” I ask her, and my eyes are transformed immediately into those of a puppy in an animal-shop who is asking to be chosen. “The fact is that it’s a complicated situation” she replies. “But I’ll see you before you leave” she says me. “I do not know, I would have liked to see you in a different environment. Maybe going around together to know each other. If every time I come to dance, I should do this performance” She smiles “I do not go out any longer”. “Nah.” She says, as the teachers use to do with the children when they pout and threaten to not want to play more. “I mean, I could not unlock me, but I’d like to be with you in a different context” Calmer now, and smoother. “I know. But there’s this guy “ “I give you my number hiddenly.” I stress my voice almost childlike. She smiles. “I’m sorry” “All right “ Kisses. I’ll get my jacket, Jose and his friend who had watched the scene, smile. The friend of Jose, approaches me and says “Header final eh?” Fatty laughs. While I take my sweater and jacket, I get the usual feeling of whiplash. I guess it as the human counterpart of the sting of a scorpion. The classic shot of a sudden, as the momentum of the hips that when you are deep down, makes you do the final jump. The fact is that most often makes things worse, and the fallout makes come down even lower. Now that I think about it, after my whiplash I always felt embarrassed. But while it comes I can’t keep it. Not everyone do these sort of things and all the times it ends up that I am ashamed of it. Every time. Shortly: I go to the bar, I ask for a napkin. The I go to the cashier and ask for a pen. I write on the napkin my cell phone number, give back the pen. They look at me. I put myself in a corner of the room. With the napkin I do a flower: petals, stem and leaf. I put the flower in my pocket and go up to Naiara. Me: “I greet you then” We kiss, I give her the flower. I was nervous. She is surprised, maybe I made her unconfortable. Her: “No, no” Me: “Put it in your purse,” insisting in a low voice. Her: “Okay.” Me: “Inside it there is my number,” I add quickly. I do not give her time to answer and I go, stumbling among the people. I felt like a thief on the run, I was burning. I leave there even my new scarf, a christmas present given me the day before. The thought to come back in and take it, It doesn’t even touch me. Outside, there’s Jose. I lean against the car and I lit a cigarette. I explain what I did while smoking the cigarette up in the middle. Passed it to him with trembling hands. He sees me, perhaps for the first time in my classic confusion by over-excitement. It calms me. “Be cool Fran, you did a good thing” You can not win the attention of a woman voluntarily. Being chosen by a woman, not accomplishing jobs, winning sports, or others things; this is the real success: being selected by a woman. I wish with all my heart that she chooses me. The real priority is Love. I hope that she will be able to see beyond my clumsiness, and she will be still attracted to me. I feel that this girl is what I was expecting. .. Actually I think it whenever I have to do with a girl I like. And that thought makes me fall in anxiety. Because I always think: “What if she is the woman I was expecting? If that woman is She finally, I can not behave with her as with any. What should I do? I will treat her in a special way. But if this woman is She and I can not win Her attention or if She does not recognize me and She does not chose me, or if at that time I am not able to interest Her, what happens? I lose Her forever? I lose Her forever! I lose my opportunity for the Love forever! The only reality in life that can make a person really happy! What a mess! “ How many hidden problems in a glance. My question is this: “What do you do when you meet the Woman who can make you happy, really happy? She can give you something you’ve never tried, can really change your life. “ Thinking about all this, while she looks at you it’s embarrassing. You feel almost guilty for her, because of this responsability. You think all this while you look at her, while she looks at you … You have this in your mind. What a secret, what a novel.