(Previously on The War Bride: narrator watches a 4-hour Emma miniseries, experiences a moment of clarity.)

I have good, reliable friends. Smart, too. The kind of smart you trust will tell you if you’re deluding yourself.

No need for the bullet list now. Let’s go straight to the main course.

Two girls named Stella.

(The overabundance of Stellas isn’t anything to write home about, per se. Were they male instead of female, we’d be facing an overabundance of Fabios. Funny how first names can rise up and dominate a generation only to be regarded as quaint little artifacts ten years down the line.)

(But we’re not majoring in dude history here. So bear with me.)

Stella One is married, living abroad, and older – but not that much.

Stella Two is half of a lovable twosome, living in Italy, and younger – but not that much.

Each Stella knows about the Other Stella. They never met.

As it happens, though, they share an uber-feminist take on popular culture, a mate who worships the ground they walk on, an enviable grasp on current events, a warm, easy way with words and an uncanny ability to balance any household chore with a career in traditionally male-dominated fields. If 2012 brings us even a fraction of the disasters we fear will strike, and the only people in the northern hemisphere that manage to survive are the Stellas, in a couple weeks electricity’d be up and running again. I love them dearly.

Let’s see what they made of my situation, as of last week.

Stella One:

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but panic’s a sneaky fucker, therefore its trigger will change as it pleases. Just sayin’.”

Stella Two:

“You’re so bothered by our political situation because you don’t have a man. I’ve got a man, see what I care.” (sips tea; inhales, exhales; looks me dead in the eyes) “Yeah, you’re pretty much doomed to carry your unhappiness along, no matter where you move.”

It’s all in good faith, and the sentiment is appreciated, but I wonder why all of a sudden everyone decided that “unadulterated honesty” is where it’s at. Was there a big girlfriend convention while I was gone? Was it called Sorry If I Hit A Nerve?

There’s also a Stella Three, anda Stella Four, who haven’t been consulted about the matter for fear of information overload. Stella Three got divorced, so she might be familiar with the yearning for personal space, but I’m not pushing it: Stella Four tends bar, and does not need that drama.

Anyway.

Stellas aside, everyone else has offered his or her condolences. Some more convincingly so than the others, but that’s what the social contract tells us to do. When in doubt, say you’re sorry.

In my case, the social contract also mandates that, after the OMG-are-you-ok-did-it-hurt-was-it-bad-could-it-be-and-will-you-still-love-me-tomorrow string has been stretched out to maximum capacity, a person will lean closer and whisper in my ear “…you know, I did think the journey thing was a terrible idea.”

The question, of course, is not “why are they so eager to speak up now?”, but “why did they feel they had to agree with me ?”

It’s the Old Boy horizontal fight in verbal terms, and it’s been running in my head for some time.

I have exactly one friend who objected to Ibiza. One. Now I’m going to have to give him the crazy respect you’d give to someone who was cured of brain cancer by electrocution. And he’s so going to tell me what to do for the rest of my life. And I will have to take heed.

According to my mother, who has now earned the right to be known as “Bride Mom: Unlikely Voice Of Reason”, nobody dared to spill the beans because of some eerie power of persuasion I’m supposed to possess.

Nice try, but – no. My powers of persuasion are nowhere near that good. If they were, I’d have been banged more times than the Law & Order gavel.

This social contract thing baffles me to no end.

Something good came from the crash, too. Now I’m the sole provider for a home.

(Previously on The War Bride: female narrator gets out of a country she hates, only to discover she can’t function in a normal environment; opts for a strategic retreat, starts wondering if that’s all there is.)

I’ve seen the Ibiza thing happen in other people’s lives.

Heather, the lead in Irvine Welsh’s “The Undefeated”, chooses the very same spot for her first break from an unhappy home life, but she can barely leave her hotel room: while her friend Marie seems pretty happy “swanning around the bars in San Antonio”, Heather spends a horrifying week as a shut-in, alternatively berating herself for the failure of her marriage and bawling her eyes out. She flies home earlier, determined to ride it out, but she knows a vacation was not the wisest choice as far as The Rest Of Her Life is concerned.

I pored over Welsh’s novels in my early twenties, hoping to feel, uh, chemically in tune with someone who employed the same recreational tools I did. In the end, what really stuck was the loneliness of a single woman. Fancy that.

I started thinking about it as I headed home again. It’s an old question.

Do feel lonely, or are you alone?

I’m not truly alone – I failed in securing a mate, but I was blessed in the friends department. (Granted, most of them didn’t know me when all I hoped was to spontaneously combust, but some people who had known me for 10+ years still took me back – turns out they did want me to get help, but were afraid they’d fare much worse with an intervention. Can’t blame them on this one.)

So, I guess I’m lonely.

I know. A single woman in her thirties must be stored in one of two separate containers. There’s Box A, for those unattached and loving every minute of it, thus capable of having sex with the reckless abandon of fictional males; and there’s Box B, for those who are pretty much ready to surrender themselves to an eternity of old-maidenhood.

I’m 32, and I’m looking for Box C. But that’s not the issue here.

There’s Us Girls, with the artfully displayed banter, the tee-hee and the flirtation trigger. There’s usgirls, eyes on the nonexistent prize, desperate for a glimpse at coupledom, and oh, the lenghts we’ll go to be spared but one word.

There’s a lot of us.

You know it.

You love it.

You thrive on our lack of marriageability.

We’re the living, breathing example of When Holding Out For A Hero Goes Wrong. There is comfort to be had in the spectacle of us, keeping ourselves busy with things such as late night cable fare, 12-step self-improvement programs, questionable life choices – and unabashedly poor judgement whenever male society enters the fold.

No hard feelings. I’d probably do the same if I were you.

Call it poor-Heatherness.

I just read “Hey Nostradamus!”, and one thing hit me from the start.

When I used to read Douglas Coupland as a girl, I couldn’t really wrap my head around the amount of pain his signature characters suffered because of them being alone. It all seemed a bit much. Like the author was using “loneliness” as a plain character trait, or maybe it was his notion of style that made him choose that literary path.

I’m afraid I judged those characters. Bad idea.

Because, you see, now I know that feeling. I own that feeling. You’re thirty, you get up in the morning, you take one look at the bathroom mirror and you go, Lord, I have another forty-odd years of this ahead of me. What am I going to do.

But.

As much as it pains me to admit it, that very same loneliness I despise is what kept me alive – scratch the past tense. It still does.

It gave me room to breathe when I needed it bad. It allowed me to pursue a career when I wasn’t happy with a job. Best of all, it stayed with me as I started writing for a living. It narrowed my focus to a chapter, a paragraph, right down to a single word.

Loneliness doesn’t have a gender. It’s just an it.

And it does have a downside, because being like this just hurts. But if I had to choose between securing a companion while carrying around such a sense of displacement, and staying alone in the here and now, I wouldn’t bat an eye.

I’ve been a fool to think I ever could.

Here I wrote something about my body being both the target and the way out for any undesirable emotion. I tend to follow similar cues when entertainment is concerned. If I want to read, watch, or listen to something, I shall. It’s not a solace thing as much as a food-and-shelter kind of thing. Sometimes you know what you need, and that is that.

Last week I was driven to watch a four hour BBC miniseries based on “Emma”.

Brutal, I know. But you do what you gotta do.

And I’m no Austenite in need of a quick fix, but something about Emma always hit the spot. (So much more than “Pride and Prejudice”, cause if that were the case, I’d have been all up in a Bollywoodish adaptation, and I can vouch on that not happening). So, I just went with it.

As it turned out, “Emma” served a double purpose: it kept me vaguely entertained, and it smacked the back of my head like an exceptionally well-spoken two-by-four.

When Harriet balks at her refusing to even consider marriage, Emma offers a reasonable explanation for such an outlook on “romance”: she’s independently wealthy, so she doesn’t have to put herself on the market; she’s occupied, what with running her own house, tending to her own needs and so on; best of all, she’s never going to end up “an old maid” like their neighbour Miss Bates, for she will always be able to rely on her personal fortune and position to avoid the ugly label.

My twelve year old self was dead on in feeling cheated by Disney’s take on “The Little Mermaid”. Losing a beautiful singing voice for a twat. Bitch had it coming.

Of course – we all know how it ends: Emma marries because she falls in love, not out of family obligations or a misplaced sense of propriety. She gets the guy and the life. But first and foremost, she stops making plans, and learns to see what’s what.

I thought I had it all in my head. I let myself get so carried away with the notion of leaving, I forgot to look around.

It had always been there, really.

Ibiza lasted less than 48 hours.

And now that we’ve got the suspence out of the way, let’s proceed.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my stay in AA, is that you should always plan an escape route.
This very bit of common sense is supposed to make yourself feel better about facing social gatherings without a drink in your hand, and it does. Which is why you might be tempted to boil it down to something like “never attend a party in an isolated location without a fully charged mobile, a bona fide chaperone, a list of excuses for disappearing, an overabundance of cab fare, a .45 and a shovel”.
But it also comes with a sliver of abstract truth in it: no matter where you go, you’re bound to be fucked over again and again and again.

Many missteps were made during the planning of the trip.
First of all, I trusted a network of acquaintances over photographic evidence, and I found myself in quite an undesirable situation.
You’ll understand why I’m wary of whipping out details in a blog post – suffice it to say, there was no way I could live there for five weeks.
Second, I assumed that the sheer newness of a place was worth any possible discomfort, if only for the experience points.
I underestimated my need for comfort.
“Comfort” has become such a bad word lately – maybe because we’ve come to associate “comfort” with “luxury”, “overspending”, “narcissism” or, Heaven forbid, “bling”. (Textbook Depression mentality, if you ask me, but the next couple posts will prove how much of a Regent junkie I am, so there we go.) It’s a slippery path: if you’re not willing to make a few changes, you’ll never experience the pleasure of roughing it out; if you can’t rough it out, you’re bound to get over-attached to material items, never enjoying any peace of mind; and if you can’t deal with the healing powers of poverty, then you better take your ungrateful ass home. (Spoiler alert: why, yes, I did. But hear me out.)
Third, the world’s grittiest display of disposable-camera pictures would have never prepared me to the ugliness that we call Ibiza Town.
The first waves of anxiety hit me exactly 24 hours after landing.

And now, our feature presentation.

As, I gather, 90% of my generation, I grew up with a passing knowledge of panic attacks. What they were supposed to feel like, what the most common triggers were, what kind of damage there were likely to cause in an otherwise sound, rational mind: we had it all down. Which is why, later on, I was able to fake one, in order to break away from a vacation with a boyfriend I’d just found out I didn’t want to kiss in the first place. (I’ve sort of gotten better with age on that count.)
Truth be told, I had had an episode all of my own maybe a year before – but I couldn’t repeat that performance even if I tried: I lost consciousness in a public place, having dinner with people I didn’t know; said people dragged me to my parents’ house because their address was still listed on my ID; said parents took me to the ER, which is where I woke up, later that night, with very little recollection of the events that just transpired. A doctor said I might have experienced panic, other than a mild case of alcohol poisoning: were something wrong with our choice of drinks (it could have been the case: other people in the dinner party felt sick), my body would react in a violent, hostile manner, and my mind would decide to just shut off and call it a night.
Wise words that I then chose to read as public hospital drunk tanks: oh, do go there if you get the chance.
It took me a lo-o-o-o-ong time to live that down.

(This for the “I swear I’m not making that up” files: years later I ran by chance into one of those nice people from that night, a woman who just chirped “oh, we should get together and get smashed again!”. Which speaks volumes of the hidden desperation of people who work in advertising. Also: escape routes, plan at least one.)

Then I was 28, I was getting sober, and it all started to crash down on my body.
I learned to cope with anxiety, but when something troubled me it always chose to manifest in physical terms. Alcohol withdrawal meant no painkiller could sedate menstrual cramps; work-related stress begat severe bouts of insomnia; relationship issues resulted in sudden over- or undereating weeks. It was all good. As long as my mind and my body kept seeing each other I had an ok chance of staying alive.

And then I was in Ibiza.

I’d spent the day rearranging stuff to make the house a little more livable, buying groceries to keep up with a semblance of ordinariness, placing my laptop in different rooms and corners just to be extra sure there would be enough light for me to work during daytime. I had vague plans with my landlord’s girlfriend to meet up later that night. I had everything under control. No matter how dismal it all might have looked from the outside, I would make it work. I had no regrets: I was going to enjoy myself. Five weeks would go by in no time.
6 PM rolled in.
I stopped and went, what the fuck am I supposed to do here exactly?
And something else went, well, you won’t write a word in here, that much’s for sure.
Any anxiety I’d felt until then came down to a series of well-worn scenarios: me not meeting enough people, not being daring enough, not being able to push myself out of my comfort zone. And yes, me not landing the boy who was waiting in vain, somewhere beyond the sea. All fell safely within the “no pain, no gain” borders.
This was a whole other thing.
I had not envisioned any AU where I’d not be writing. Not enjoying the process. Not happy, or getting there.
Remember? It’s what you do. It’s who you are.
My lips were shaking. My pulse started to race and didn’t slow down.
It took me half an hour to reply to a friends’ email, and it reminded me of how painstakingly accurate my drunken emails and texts had been – how I used to double-check ever word so nobody would know.
At 8 PM, I went for a walk.
It’s just post-performance jitters, I thought. Some fresh air will settle this.
I had nowhere to go.
I had nothing to come home to.
Someone was following me. (Maybe he was, but come on.)
The scariest thing was, I was suddenly unable to make sense.
Sentences, and then single words, would come out fractured beyond recognition. Like a banged up record that skips from Song A to Song C to Song Z to Song F and all over again, never pausing long enough for the scratching noise to subside.
I couldn’t even ask for directions.
I went back in, shut the door, freaked out.

There came the time-honored staples of panic – you might find them in the DSM, I guess, but Wikipedia will do the trick if you’re in a hurry. Check them out.

I finally understand why it’s call “panic”. You’re not there anymore.
No – you’re in there, somewhere, and you won’t get out.

The attack didn’t really stop. It subdued after midnight, after five+ hours of shaking and crying and not eating and not breathing and needing ten different beats to break one “hallo” down, after my second anti-anxiety pill, after I had been laying down for hours, planning my escape route.

The day after, in the smoking lounge of the Madrid hub, safe in the knowledge my luggage was being misplaced along the way, I thought of locked-in syndrome.

A panic attack is your body’s way of saying, alright, I can see where this is headed, I must be logging out now.
And I thought that blacking out was all the fun I could handle.

(Of course, I’m only saying this because ten-odd days are passed. My feelings at the time, if I remember correctly, made for a dizzying array of GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT. Too bad I couldn’t.)
[For the record: I had maybe three tablets of Lexotan on me (fairly common anti-anxiety medication, works for insomnia as well, will not be sold over the counter), but I ain’t no Valley of the Dolls denizen, nor do I look forward to become one. If “being able to do normal shit” means “keeping yourself under the swoony influence of mood-altering drugs”, that’s not how I roll. Hand over the seal of FAIL, if you must.)

In the end, I did manage to get home, and no one seemed that sorry.

I started thinking, I’ll need some major regrouping after this.

The thing that saved me was a four-hour BBC special.

For the past six weeks, I had a date and a note that said thisistheday.

I’m leaving tomorrow.

For the next five weeks, I’ll be staying in Ibiza.

Ibiza (noun): Mediterranean island, home for the past 40-odd years to an assortment of burnouts, hippies, acid casualties, club fiends, weekend scenesters, aimless people, directionless people. And supposedly James Blunt.

I’m looking forward to all that.

Reasons to try it on: out-of-season vacation spots always had a powerful hold on me; obvious semi-historic appeal, check; the only people living there in Nov./Dec. must be truly committed to the island, capable of dealing with a semi-regular job aside from summery delights, very keen on the peace-and-quiet element, or insane.

Prep work: Italian HMO card should work fine for emergencies (thanks to the T.E.A.M – Tessera Europea Assicurazione Malattia); medical checkups confirmed I’m good to go; Euro-valid ATM card was obtained in five minutes, tops.

Morale-boosting pre-move move: finally got around to replacing broken eyeglasses; the haircut is down to what it was supposed to be in the first place; this morning I caught a look in the mirror and went all “goodness, I’m a passable hot boy. Only my gender gives me away”.

Oh, and my landlord is a trumpet player. Figure that out, you lucky so-and-so.

Well well well.

It’s been a while, and I’m really sorry – got caught up in that big ol’ pile of Things You Should Do Before A Trip (which in my case included getting your eyesight checked and getting an Unintentional Shauna O’Brien haircut – draw your own conclusions).

I think it’d be wise of me to start explaining a few guidelines for what I’m about to do.

So, join me in the FAQ Master List.

——–

Why are you leaving?

See here. (And here, if you’re up for some nation/gender moping.)

How long will you be traveling around?

At the very least, I’ll be on the move until late 2010. By then, I hope, I’ll have landed on a better planet. Some place I feel ok living in for a couple years, if not until the day I die. Also – I’m not planning on meeting my uber-fabulous maker soon.

How long will you stay in a single place?

Depends. One-two months’ stays are probably the best fit for me: just enough to get a feel of different cities and neighborhoods, without beating yourself up too much if things turn out to be less than ideal.

How many countries will you visit?

I’m curious about it myself.

…Huh?

I’ve made a list of places and cities to spin, but I’m trying to be a c’mon-will-it-kill-you-to-broaden-your-horizons-just-a-little gal here – so, while I’ll watch out for anything that might pop up, say, in Barcelona, Portland or Brighton, I’ll also let fate decide for me. When it can be bothered to intervene.

Fate.

Dude, I know.

How are you going to support yourself?

Glad you asked. Money’s an obvious issue here – international travel is way cheaper than it used to be, but that doesn’t mean I won’t take budget into consideration. (And no, I am not living off a trust fund.)

That said, I’ve saved up enough for an ok year – this means subletting an apartment when/where I can, a single room when/where I can’t, keeping up with the freelance work (the past couple of years I’ve been hired by Rolling Stone, Wired and a number of local magazines) and at least taking into consideration any steady gig that won’t force me to get back in Italy.

I also swore to my agent I’ll be done with Novel Number Two by the end of May. So.

And I do work from home, so I’ll tend to avoid what we like to call “the Erasmus kiss of death”. (As far as I understand, ageism is serious business in several metropolitan areas, so it’s not like I’ll be breaking any hearts here.)

Will you be able to come and go as you please? Seriously?

The subtle beauty of being a UE citizen lies in not having to fill out a gazillion forms. Most of the time. Any visit to the US falls under the Visa Waiver program: should I opt for a 3-month-plus stay, I’ll have to apply for a tourist visa. (Also: Latin American countries follow different rules, but right now the chances of me successfully negotiating a Buenos Aires sublet online are pretty slim.)

Hey, I live in an interesting city/town/village/’hood/hole in the wall, I think you should give it a try.

Drop me a line: violettabellocchio at gmail dot com

Anything else?

I’ll be applying for a couple artists’ residencies here and there: getting in is a whole other matter, so I won’t be placing all my eggs of ZOMG stability in that basket, thank you.

I’m questioning your badassness.

Don’t.

Found on choiresicha.com - do not sue.

Hey y’all,

just a quick update for today – I finally found a place to stay for my first foray into self-exile.

Destination: Spain.

Exact location: will be revealed only after my friends stop laughing at me.

Will be posting the Master List of Rules and Regulations on Friday - that should help explaining just how I’m doing it, with “it” being “travelling around for 14 months in search of a new country to live”.

Until then – I am so happy. I am.

I should not be blogging right now because I spent the whole morning trying to get paid for work I’ve done in the past three months.

I should not be blogging because when your head hits a ceiling made of anger, frustration and sheer loneliness, you should turn to useful things like taking a walk or making a sandwich for your blind neighbour. Nice, mature, gender-approved and age-appropriate things.

What I am doing is blogging. Bear with me.

If you’re a girl, and you’re born in Italy, there’s two career paths you can take.

Pet.

Find rich guy

Date rich guy

Live with / Marry rich guy

Aaaand you’re set.

(Pet /2: land influential boyfriend/lover that will take care of your professional future. No. Different. At all.)

Cattle

Hope you won’t die today.

And that is all.

(And this, apparently, is how an entire nation becomes a plotline from “Sin Tetas No Hay Paraiso“. Can’t vouch for that, but I’m afraid the reference’s spot on.)

A jilted boyfriend can – and probably will – kill you out of spite. Any male relative can beat you up until he damn well pleases. And now, you might want to check out some stats – Italian text only, ’cause we sure don’t want other people to find out how bad things are going around here.

Despite that, the public debate on women seems to have narrowed down to a parade of talk show hosts asking, “Scantily clad babes on our TV screens: Yes or No?”. (Think about “Even Stevphen“. Then take it down a few notches.)

So you protect yourself any way you can.

Money. Doors. Marriage. Lack of eye contact. Earplugs. More money.

I’m tired of making myself invisible so that pretty please maybe I get to come home safe.  I’m tired of hiding.

And I can hide behind anything – long hair, oversized clothing, displacement, old tricks, cigarettes, bouts of laziness, workaholism, not leaving the house, claiming I’m short on cash or hope, saying I’m too old for it anyway.

My parents tried to make an convincing argument out of the whole “oh noes, if you move away we’ll never get to see you anymore” (true), but they also said, “with an itty bitty bit of luck you can find someone here, too”.

Not true.

Guys, I can’t fall in love with you when I hate this country so much.

Provided there is someone ok out there, I won’t even see him.

I can’t get over the fact that, to me, Italian men and Italy are one and the same. That I resent you for never noticing bruises on a co-worker, always leaving things alone, always hiding behind your own alibis for not stepping up. Always pretending you weren’t there when atrocious, uber-anti-woman laws were being debated. So fuck you, nice, ineffectual boys who never say (let alone do) a thing about sexual harassment in the workplace. Witty, cultured boys who make “oh, you slimmed down” jokes to girls and *know* they’ll totally get away with that. Boys who still think they’re too young to vote. Boys who never take a stand. Boys that still think being boys will let them get away with anything.

But fuck me for thinking there was no rush when everyone else was pairing up, and fuck me for being deluded enough to think being a girl would let me get away with anything, and fuck me for getting sober when chances I’d ever be able to touch someone without getting smashed first looked slim to none, and fuck me for not doing it sooner, because, really, did I have to bat my eyes and hide behind my oh, I’d be lost without my native language fan until it was too late to change a single thing?

Yeah, you might see where I’m coming from.

And I don’t love myself for turning my back to this desperate, sick country, but fuck if it isn’t my last chance to save myself. To find out if I can even function in any environment that resembles normalcy.

If I don’t feel ok with who I am, I can’t fall in love.

If I don’t fall in love, I can’t really stick around in a relationship

(ed: I might still start one, but chances are I’ll bolt in two months’ time and/or start feigning panic attacks -  btw, if you’re reading this and I dated you in my twenties – er. sorry about that.)

If I don’t stick around in a relationship, I’ll forget  the reason I’m doing this.

And if it all sounds a little too Saving Private Ryan-ish for your tastes – there’s nothing I can do about it. Sorry.

—–

So, before I turn into a female dude from Gogol Bordello and start spouting ancient wisdom that doesn’t make a lick of sense, I’ll leave me with two words of advice:

This is where you came from.

Don’t let it fuck you up more than it already did.

—–

(coming up next: Let’s get down to details: travel itineraries, savings, visas and short-term plans.)

Such a task would be deemed “doable”, were the situation just a little bit different.

Not around here.

I was born in Italy. I’m still living here. I’m 32 years old.

I’m leaving in a month.

Reasons could be written off as “needing some personal time”. But there’s more to the story.

Current Italian laws make it impossible for an unmarried woman to get artificially inseminated, whatever her sexual orientation might be (wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it would have been nice for it to be a choice somehow). The same goes for adoption: you need to be straight and have been married for a few years [ed.: apparently, you can apply for adoption and pull the old "...no, Your Honor, but we do plan to get married soon" - bonne chance] before you can turn in the papers, and even then it’s a big “if” (which could explain why so many couples just get on the road, travel to former Soviet Republics and swipe babies for cash… but I digress).

So, if an Italian woman happens to be in lack of a husband and wanting to start a family, several appealing alternatives are laid down in front of her.

1. Pay massive amount of cash to get an in vitro abroad (unknown donor), then raise the kid as a single parent.

Pros: hey, it’s your baby.

Cons: baby gets crushed under the weight of Messianic expectations.

2. Pay massive amount of cash to get an in vitro abroad (you know the donor), then raise the kid as a semi-single parent.

Pros: you’re not on your own.

Cons: donor could fight you for custody, and win; donor could change his mind about sharing any sort of responsibility, effectively pinning you in .1 scenario; seems to work only for lesbian couples whose Spider-sense is really, really sharp.

3. Trick unsuspecting guy in getting you pregnant, then raise the kid as a single parent.

Pros: Unsuspecting Guy never finds out, therefore he can’t become Bad Influence on kid.

Cons: Also called pulling a Loverboy.

4. Trick unsuspecting guy in getting you pregnant, then go around screaming “it’s your child too, you bastard” and hope the DNA tests prove you right.

Pros: you might get some child support money – if and when the court rules in your favor.

Cons: do you really want to be that person?

5. Invest years, time and energy in landing an actual relationship with a man, then hope he might want to become a father one day.

Pros: it’s supposed to be natural.

Cons: personal/emotional life morphs into series of increasingly desperate manipulation attempts; relationship might de-evolve into a 2. scenario.

But.

Should any of these things work out for you, there’s no safety net when it comes to getting back on your feet and into the workforce.

You’re a woman, and you’re in Italy, therefore you’re expected to make everything turn out ok without any kind of support.

So much fuss is made about you (aka Future Wife/Mother Figure) as a future family cornerstone, but no political party is going to do anything to help you. You want a kid, you’re on your own. You want to work, you’re on your own. And never the twain shall meet.

I really don’t want to be that.

I don’t want to kill off everything I tried to do in the past 10+ years just so that I might, one day, get a husband and a baby. I know I won’t.

But I don’t want to keep on making myself invisible to men, so that I can do my thing and little else, banishing any thought of an actual relationship.

So, I’m leaving. Let’s see if things are really the same anywhere else.