Curious about dating in Italy

What is it ACTUALLY like?

If you follow me on social media, I explained in my stories that I wanted to write on more personal topics. Writing has always been a hobby and passion, and want to keep it that way, challenging myself to go beyond my comfort zone. Writers and creatives tend to get pigeonholed into the work they are known for, limiting them from expansion. We are not just the topic we work for.

I realized this platform could be the opportunity to spill what has been brewing in my heart and mind for a while. And that is, to write about topics people can relate to besides some listicle guide on food in Italy. Not to say I’ll ever stop writing about food!

Disclaimer: Please know these are observations albeit analytical based off my experience and speaking with not only friends (both Italian and foreign) but also blog readers, hairdressers, acquaintances, etc.

I do love Italy and admire Italian culture, and I know plenty of awesome Italian men who do not represent my analytical take. Take the following with a grain of salt.

But first, a rather personal detour for context….

For the last several months, my attention has been consumed by resources to better understand dating and relationships while educating myself more on mental health.

As you may already know, and alluded to in this “Curious about Milan” post, my last relationship of 2 years with a chef ended abruptly after discovering he was quite literally a psychopath living a double life.

I am usually one to have a humorous tone in spilling tea but there’s no other way to slice it.

By sheer fortuitous chance, the truth was served to me on a silver platter. I would have never guessed the level of deception I had been manipulated into in, and anyone else who met us together were equally stunned.

Suffice to say I was shocked, devastated and endured a considerable amount of unspeakable betrayal and grief. I am sharing this because I want to remind what you see online is a lot of smoke and mirrors made of flimsy baloney.

You may see couples who share their moments online happy, and I was (while deceived under an illusion), but lurking underneath unbeknownst to me was a fraud, a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Trust I’m not exaggerating when I say they were a literal psychopath. I’m refraining from spilling the whole story because he’s simply not worth it. I’m more interesting than his psychosis. We should stop being so interested in abusers (some even sympathizing) and more interested in the path us survivors forge towards resilience.

Even though the lemons this situation not only forced me to make lemonade, it needed a f*** ton of gin to make it palatable.

More than anything, what this has taught me is you just never know the secrets people keep and what some deeply unhealed people are capable of doing to others.

Not only did I have to recover from such a traumatic situation (a level of suffering I wouldn’t wish on even my favorite of haters), I had to start again from scratch in a dating pool I thought I was done with. (well, at least for a while) And in Italy!

Since my D-Day, I took on the serious work to confront how I ended up in such a situation and processing all the complicated emotions with it.

Of course I do not blame myself. Although society LOVES when women take all the responsibility, like girl you shouldn’t have been there! Stop breathing!!!!! Wow- that dress? You asked for it.. And “you should have stood your ground” might be my favorite of gaslighting phrases that blames women on the receiving end for the bad behavior of men.

It is too inconvenient for many to instead admit the prevalence of mentally unwell individuals like this just roaming around being overlooked, getting a pass from the patriarchy (why has this “boys will be boys” behavior been normalized?) No, they have serious problems and need professional help.

Instead of seeing these people in desperate need of help but rather “just another dude being a dumb jerk”, they are enabled to continue being expert manipulators that exploit and take advantage of (relatively) normal people with a functioning moral compass.

That said, I can’t save anyone but myself. I found a lot of podcasts, books and articles that helped me grow & heal through such a difficult time. I was determined to examine and learn from this experience. To come out the victor and not the victim.

Regardless of the details in what made this person very sick and twisted (and has yet to face lasting sober accountability), I felt the need to provide some context as to how I got off topic from the usual scheduled programming of food.

So now you know the context to why I wanted to write down all my many thoughts about dating in Italy now I'm more lucid as an adult than ever. Eyes wide f***ing open.

So what is dating like in Italy? For starters, I don’t think there is much of a dating culture (or etiquette) in Italy the way there is in the US. Especially around courting. There are certain stereotypes Americans have about Italian men being these prince charming types and the unmatched reality in dating them.

This post might be a bit all over the place as I have to cover a few camps, i.e. the Italian flirty toy boy, the Disney romantic and the peter pans.

I think too many Italian men lack modern romantic emotional intelligence and rarely value mental wellness.

Surely one could read this and say this is mostly a man problem worldwide, which it is.

Whereas men in the US typically have full time jobs, dating an Italian is like a full-time job in itself. Hope you like mothering like his mother! Or making up for the mothering they never received (which is sorta like all men in general tbh). And the pay? PASTA.

Do you know how to make pasta like his nonna? Get cracking! And get used to his mamma and nitpicking and micromanaging your every move while probably making some unfiltered comment about your size or way of dress.

Accustomed to a man taking you out to dinner? Here it’s “alla Romana…”

And that’s for the men who happen to be interested in something substantial! Unfortunately many see American women as easy targets and in cities like Florence with a constant flow of tourists & students here temporarily- a candy store for flings!

I’ve overheard deplorable things said by Italian men along the lines of “hunting season” when high tourist & student season arrives.

My observation is that too many Italian men will seek frivolous encounters for as long as study abroad students flow and their looks will allow them to.

Do you like a man with a plan? GOOD LUCK finding either in Italy! If you don’t speak much Italian, I’m certain one of the first phrases you’ll hear the most are “vediamo/ci sentiamo.” Meaning they are very much a “‘let’s play it by ear….” vibe.

I personally find love bombing to be a massive red flag (one of the “romantic latin lover” stereotypes) as it is rarely matched with substantial commitment.

Like, how do you know you love me after the 1st date when you don’t even know that I’m writing this blog post about you?

The ultimate red flag are the men who try to create incentive to match with them by promising to make you the best carbonara of your life. It’s so obvious what (and who) they are after when they come out the door like this.

And I think their type of persistence in which they don’t take no for an answer is a sort of (and usually is) sexual assault. And goes wildly unreported because Italian society is super behind in holding this behavior accountable, which is saying a lot because most of the world is.

Finding atypical Italian men who do not exhibit some level of misogynistic traits and disprove these generalizations is like a needle in the haystack at times.

However, I do still believe some of the pitfalls in dating men are exclusive to Italian men because the society still is so heavily patriarchal (ranking high for femicide) and rather behind in most social issues.

I don’t think men work on themselves here as much as they do at least where I’m from in the states where therapy is normalized. A lot of peters pans are also running around there!

While Italians are applauded for their strong family values, the reality is some are heavily under the influence of toxic co-dependent dynamics with questionable moral compasses (especially relaxed attitudes towards infidelity and what defines it) that lead to a lot of arrested emotional development, enabling and denial of bad behavior.

For example, I have seen women laugh off their husbands following a bunch of OnlyFans models on IG.

If you can see that in plain view- I can only place handsome bets on what else they are hiding. Check your bank statements (or PayPal, etc)- they are probably paying them- and that is a form of cheating which goes excused!

Too many men in my age range in Italy, still have not grown up and are ill-equipped to appreciate a woman who is with them not because they need them but because they want to.

Men of previous generations had Susie Homemaker (armed with copious amounts of valium and martini to numb reality) on their side in which a woman settled because society didn’t give her any other choice.

Some Italian men (hell, maybe most people in general) have this narcissistic fantasy about finding “the one” usually based on superficial standards. Can’t blame them- these men have been raised on TV that openly objectifies women and their bodies.

Paradoxically I do indeed love Italy, Italians and their passion for things like food, incredible intelligence and enjoying the small things in life.

To the credit of Italian men, generally they have a decent baseline appreciation for culture and are able to hold intriguing conversations around politics, philosophy, art, food, wine and music. This I so appreciate and is why I believe they have the capacity to do better and challenge the lame dynamics present in modern dating.

I honestly have observed very few inter-cultural relationships between Italians and Americans I truly admire or think aren’t a situation in which they are just checking a box.

Even if they aren’t in an extreme situation, I’m convinced most happy seeming relationships aren’t all that cracked up to be and there’s something you don’t know.

Plenty of people feel alone or resentful how their life turned out (if they are able to be honest with themselves in the 1st place) even surrounded in a full house.

Granted, this is an observation I hold beyond Italy- as so many people (especially women) just settle for the first dude that came along with wilted flowers or whoever was willing to meet the arrangement they were seeking.

That they either abandon their standards (if they had any to begin with), conflate compromise with sacrifice, treat the bare minimum as exceptional or award-worthy or tolerate dysfunction out of fear of the being alone boogieman.

I do think the unicorn exists, there are plenty of my Italian male friends who are wonderful. If you’re curious if they are single…well sorry either there they are spoken for because they probably had a secure attachment style or simply because they were lucky.

Single folk tend to analyze all the reasons we are single (even history’s most relentless monsters were married and had families) but I think it frankly comes down to luck being in the right place at the right time crossing paths with the right amount of chemistry and compatibility.

I used to think you needed to have an iron clad sense of confidence, did all this work on myself to be the nearest perfect version (we’re all a little quirky and flawed but that doesn’t make us unloveable!) have a bangin’ body and big beautiful eyes with an unwavering belief you deserve love (and we do! we all do! Even the monsters. Sorta.)

But I really think meeting the right person and finding lasting love comes down to luck. And also mental stability.

I also believe we should stop taking bad advice and start listening more to our intuition, pausing to settle for “good enough” (which is always a recipe for failure or complacency) and/or aren’t allergic to being single.

And most importantly, not f***ing it up! So many people self-sabatoge when they do magically meet someone they actually click with (this is no easy feat!) and then tell themselves once they burn it to the ground: “it must not have been meant to be.”

Sorry kiddo, that’s a fairy tale and fairy tales were invented by Disney. The same ones that have led women to problematic standards and delusional romantic aspirations.

My observation on online dating in Italy is particularly soul crushing where post-covid, people are relying on apps but lack the internet etiquette to properly use them.

So many messages start with “You up?” (if you’re lucky to get q in the 1st place) with virtually zero effort in trying to get to know you nor efforts to reciprocate qs you ask them. What happened to basic decent social skills? Even if they are online?

I find it so sad that in Italy, one of the most social countries on the planet with (probably) the highest per capita of extroverts, many have lost the magical sense of meeting in the wild. Or having some modicum of decorum on dating apps!

I also want to dispel this myth that a lot of my fellow American women have that Italian men are these magnificent lovers (spoiler: many could use this book) and they'll run off on vespa under a Tuscan sunset.

You'll run off under a sunset alright to a family villa, but you'll be carrying a lot of their mammone (mamma’s boy) baggage.

Generally speaking, I find Italian men to be in crisis for myriad reasons, from lack of professional direction, toxic co-dependent relationships with their mother, expecting women to be trophies, lack of modern dating literacy & emotional intelligence, not sharing the fair amount of labor in the relationship whether that’s emotional or regarding domestic tasks, willingly benefitting from a patriarchal society that tells them they are infallible for simply existing and a complete refusal to acknowledge a rigged system unfavorable to women.

I find many Italian men with an excruciating level of narrow minded mentalities especially towards feminism (they view it as man hating- feminists like myself very much love men!) and foreigners (a polite way of pointing out that immigrants experience discrimination from Italians).

Once I was on a date with a guy who remarked an antique shop had no place with their sign out front denouncing mass tourism with a plea to save local heritage businesses because he said the shop staff were Chinese. I should have been surprised as this person spoke a few languages and spent time abroad. Thank you, next!

Of course some Italians will say us Americans are too sensitive, “politically correct” and it’s not like they are out being violent (they are, just targeting women) or not providing healthcare (they love reminding Americans of this any time we vaguely criticize their society).

But this is what I mean. Why can’t we have a productive conversation and be secure enough in own belief systems to be able to respectfully engage in discourse?

Oh and I’m waiting for the “why do you live in Italy then?” pointless burger qs. Maybe because I love it and quality of life, I believe Italians come from an incredible culture with beautiful attributes and can actually do it better, especially in (almost) 2025.

On a superficial level, Italian men aren’t shabby. I do appreciate the effort they put into dress and presentation. So many times I had been on dates with men in America showing up in a hoodie looking like they just rolled out of bed.

While us women undergo being plucked and prodded, dropping cash on hair treatments, makeup, tights and painful shoes- the least you could do is put on a button up, buddy!

Of course this is not all men in a country with millions of them, but rather too many men.

I want to share stories I’ve received from others. Some ranging from pace of relationships (when is it too soon to meet the parents?), how big ARE language and cultural barriers, hopeless online dating profiles (would it kill any of you to write something? Why all the shirtless pics?), etiquette around paying (spoiler: Splitting is a vibe killer and life is more expensive for women, especially those of us who have to pay for therapy after dating you), why men in Italy tend to favor submissive “pick me types”, why you should probably get used to their exes and more on hiding and cheating.

If you have experiences dating in Italy and would like to contribute to the conversation, please comment or DM via IG. I promise to keep your share anonymous.

In your hopeful romantic trust,

Coral