The emotional nudity

When it comes to love, it seems to be all about balance. We can think, talk, analyse, elaborate hypotheses, assert, confirm, refute, the sentiment of love is the most complex one. Sometimes we think we get it, finally we understand it, then suddenly everything is obscure again. It seems like all the efforts we put into analysing and understanding the feeling of love are vain. Then we step back and think. Again, yes, again.

Can a miracle happen ? Could love be rational ? Is it all about balance ? Could the brain takes back the control ? One moment we think we are crazy and the love we feel for someone is totally out of control. The heart beats in an excessive speed. The pain unbearable. The absence kills. The silence tortures. We feel like we are drowning. We do not eat properly for days during the first days when we realise that we are falling in love. We do not sleep properly. We do not function properly.

But then there is a moment when we look at ourselves in the mirror, in an old pyjama with no make up, we say: “what the f..k is going on here?”. We realise that there is something a bit ridiculous about this whole situation of “being in love”. Why not eating? Why not sleeping? Why dreaming all the time? Why staying all day in pyjama?

That moment when we realise that the emotional nudity we are going through the last days, weeks must come to an end. Yes, we have been undressed ourselves the moment we fall in love, we have been showing ourselves naked. We reveal our weakness, we confess our needs, we admit our wants. We reveal we have lost our independence, we admit we have been vulnerable. We confess that we have cried, that we could not sleep. We said we have lost even the capacity of seduction as we have doubted so much about ourselves. But funny enough, it is exactly at the same moment that we feel stronger and invincible again. But we need to hit the bottom to climb up again. There is something very strange about the emotional nudity, you become so weak that you have to become strong again. You have become so unarmed that you have to arm yourself again with dignity to keep on loving.

It is about balance not about to stop loving. It is like when an alcoholic, after a tragic accident, realises that he should stop drinking. But here, you do not stop loving. The emotional nudity is a tragic accident in the course of love but it is necessary because it forces us to overcome. Because there is no love if we cannot be vulnerable. The whole exercise however is about how and when the balance needs to interrupt the emotional nudity. Too soon would be an abortion of the experiment of falling in love. Too late would turn the feeling of love into an ocean of suffering.

What to say? Think carefully before falling in love or falling in love first then managing the rest?

24 hours in Milan or the G. experience – Part one: the arrival

“Am I in love? Yes, since I am waiting. (..) Sometimes I want to play the part of the one who doesn’t wait; I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late, but I always lose at this game. Whatever I do, I find myself there, with nothing to do, punctual, even ahead of time. The lover’s fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits.” (Roland Barthes).

This is very subjective guide to how to spend 24 hours in Milan with the man with whom you are going to fall in love.

You know he will arrive in the afternoon around 4pm. At lunch time you are not hungry. You want to do some more visits of museums before he arrives. But your head is already somewhere in the clouds. So you end up sitting at the Café Fernanda of the Pinacotheca di Brera, a beautiful palazzo museum. You sip very slowly your cappucino, it has never been more delicious than this particular cappucino, it’s the capuccino of the day you will meet him. He sends you his location. The closer he gets to Milan, the faster your heartbeats. Even when his train stops somewhere in the middle and has a few minutes late, and he sends you again his location, even then your heart aches. He asks where you want to have dinner. He wants you to choose. He says he has a list of restaurants recommended by his friends but he will follow you anywhere you want to go.

You give him the name of the hotel where to join you. You were already in Milan a few days before his arrival. You tell him that you would leave his name at the reception. When he arrives he would just need to ask for you and you will come down. He sends you a heart emoji and a happy face.

From that moment your brain stops working. You walk around the streets next to the hotel but you do not really know what you want to do. He arrives in two hours. You go back to the hotel. You take a long shower. You pamper yourself. You smell good. He sends you more live locations. He is about 30 minutes away.

At 3.30 pm you come down to the reception to wait for him. At 4:00pm he let you know he takes the cab at the station and heads to the hotel. Ten minutes drive. Your heart stops beating. The heartbeats more and more irregular. You are stressed. It is not the first date. You have known him for almost two years. But you are stressed and excited and nervous. 4.20 pm, he is still not there. Traffic, maybe. Then he calls you. He is too shy to go to the hotel and asks for your name. He tells you he waits for you at the Swiss Corner, right in front of the hotel. You tell him you will be there in less than 3 minutes. He texts you a heart emoji and a happy face.

You cross the street. Enter the Swiss Corner bar. He waives for you. He has a big smile. He has the happiest face you have never seen. He gives you a warm long hug. Then he pulls you back a bit and look at you for 10 seconds exactly. Then he kisses you. The longest kiss of the century. No, really the longest kiss of the history of kissing.

(end of Part One: the arival…….to be continued)