Quando men vo'

Attention blonde girls! Feeling down in the dumps? Can't get attention from the fellas? Come to Rome! Dozens of dark-haired, brown-eyed men are waiting to sing your praises, fall at your feet, and undress you with their eyes!

I couldn't imagine getting more stares if I were walking around unveiled in Saudi Arabia. Italians make eye contact, check each other out. This drove me nuts the first time I came here, but I'm actually appreciating it this time. It makes me feel like the city is acknowledging my presence here. In New York, where you probably could make a living by selling eye contact, you can walk for days without anyone looking at you. Here, babies, old ladies, young women, and of course men look you in the eye and check you out. Most men look at my eyes and then their gaze falls slightly south of my shoulders. There are many government offices in Rome, so in the center you often find military and security personnel hanging out in flocks. I get smiles and stares from beneath the brims of their uniform caps.

The fact that I'm blonde, light-skinned, blue-eyed, and tower over most Italian men doesn't help the situation. Someone was telling me (was it Francesco, or Gianni?) that light hair and eyes are the symbol of purity. Consider, for example, Botticelli's birth of Venus.

There are fewer boundaries in daily life here, so it's easy to strike up conversation with strangers. This has happened on a couple of occasions with men here, and I've since learned my lesson. I was going on my daily walk, and suddenly felt the sticky stare of brown eyes. Having no other excuse, I ended up talking to them for a while, and, because they were so insistent and because I wanted to get rid of them, I gave them my number. In New York, exchanging numbers doesn't mean you'll ever actually see each other again, and if a guy calls back, you can always somehow not be available. In Italy, they call, and you have to answer. People don't leave voice mails here (most homes don't even have answering machines) because cell phones are always kept on, even in church!

Let's just suffice it to say that my experiences have at least allowed me to add the following phrases to my vocabulary: "I'm busy right now." "I'm busy for the next few nights." "I have a boyfriend, and I feel uncomfortable going out with other men. " "You're really making me uncomfortable." "Please stop calling me." "If you don't stop, I'll change my number. Then you can call all you want." One man kept calling my cell over and over again one afternoon, thoroughly freaking me out. I was just trying to blow him off! He sent me the following SMS: "Why don't you respond? Maybe in America you live like animals but in Italy, shame on you! Addio." Whew.

I've since found some nice girls to hang out with, and I'm taking my socializing with the stronger (and in this country, shorter) sex a little more slowly....