In the 1960s, Italians stood beneath il boom economico as if it were a firecracker exploding over the Arno on the night of San Giovanni. Families started cultivating city living rather than soil, digging their heels into la modernità with the zeal of a lady selling soap on TV. They temporarily pooled their resources and challenged their politicians, securing wealth and riding scooters as if the horizon was a door that led to somewhere bright. Nobody knew that 50 years would pass as fast as the turn of two tires and bring a day where ‘boom’ became ‘bust.’
This is what Matteo tells me. The man knows how to convert my every question into a three-sentence history lesson that never fails to leave me with more blanks than I had before. What I wanted to know yesterday had nothing to do with booms or busts. In fact, I had asked about Italian marriage proposals and why he thinks they differ so drastically from how Anglos approach the question of tying the knot. It would seem that there is not a married man in the whole span of the States, for example, who did not propose in a hot-air balloon or atop a skyscraper at sunset. Or arrange for his future fiancée to find an engagement ring in the first bite of a bonbon or discover it at the bottom of a glass otherwise filled with champagne.
‘When Americans pop the question, there’s always a story to tell,’ I told my friend.
‘Italians don’t pop questions,’ he answered, ripping his brioche in half and giving me the part with more marmalade.
His generosity made me want to explain. ‘It’s just an expression that means to ask someone to marry you.’
‘In Italy, you don’t really ask. You just realize that the moment has arrived.’
‘Without ever proposing?’
‘Mostly not. Arriva il momento e basta.’
This is where the 1960s economic boom came into the conversation and became the justification behind what I consider the worst news of the new millennium. I have long accepted that the country lacks bridesmaids and its language has no word that means ‘engaged.’ But Matteo seemed to be saying that marriage proposals are assumed rather than accepted, which suddenly made the cultural divide far too wide to bridge in a single breakfast.
Matteo was undaunted. Something good has to happen, he explained, before you can have the right momento realization. You need to land a job with a contract written on something other than a Kleenex. Or have the mortgage guy say ‘I do’ before you do and approve your request for a loan. Or find that your first figlio is tall enough to ride a roller coaster alone. Insomma, according to my friend, only something truly historic is momentous enough to trigger the happy resignation that, well, it is probably time to get formal about this ‘loving’ thing.
‘Italian couples settle into marriage as if it were a couch. And there isn’t too much comfort lately,’ Matteo mused. ‘With la crisi, couples find that good news is hard to come by.’
‘But I still don’t understand how a proposal happens.’
‘I don’t know…you say something like, e allora ci sposiamo? And so, we’re getting married, then?’
‘Ugh, Matteo, I’d expect more from an invitation to the movies.’
He thought and then nodded. ‘Effettivamente, our proposals don’t pop at all. They’re like coca-cola gone flat in the frigo.’ He took his final sip of cappuccino and looked at me, thinking. ‘At a certain point you just decide-you either have to drink the marriage stuff or pour it all down the drain.’
I drew a breath and stayed silent. Certainly, an appropriate comeback was right there within reach, dangling down from the firmament, plain for all to see. But just then I couldn’t find it.
Matteo does not like it when I’m quiet. He finds silence more perilous than protest. ‘Well?’ he prodded.
‘Well, I don’t think we can be friends anymore. What you just said is the worst thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘Not any worse than fishing a wet ring out of a champagne flute.’
‘And you get more terrible by the minute.’
‘But I’m not even talking about me. I’m speaking in general. If you were in love with me, I’d make sure to ask you, va bene?
‘Honey, if I were in love with you, you’d have asked me 10 years ago.’
‘Ah,’ he smiled, ‘su questo non ho dubbi.’
All right, then. There’s no doubt; we agree.
