Dear Colin,

Clearly, I had to dedicate this post to Penglin, since last night Adam and I decided to go to Venerdìverso, at Renfe. Renfe is the club outside the walls of Ferrara, and Venerdìverso is a theme night on the last Friday of every month with the subtitle "Gay, Lesbian and Everyone We Know". In January, we had a birthday party to go to instead. In February, I was sick. In March, I was in Spain. So, April rolls around, I'm not sure if there will be one this month, but I finally see the posters the day of Venerdìverso. I tell Adam about it. We decide to go. We meet Jen at Settimo, the bar where Ellen works, and hang out there for a while. I try a gin and lemon, which Ellen makes slightly strong. Then, at about 01,30, we set off, the two of us, past the walls and out into the unknown. It's about a twenty minute walk, and we're both pretty sketched out by the whole situation. We know that it's a club, and we know what this entails: loud, bad techno and creepy people. We finally arrive, and it's not quite as hopping as we probably had been anticipating. It's this little old building with some people outside, smoking cigarettes or talking with the security guard. The sketchometer is climbing, and we stand outside and weigh our choices. Finally deciding that we really just have to go in, we show the guard our Arcicards (or, rather, Adam shows the guard his Arcicard and I show him Jen's) and we step in. We open the door from where we had seen neon lights and heard pounding music. We walk in, and the only word to describe what we saw is "underwhelming". A crowd of no more than thirty people, maybe eight of whom are dancing. Slightly more women than men, and nobody is noticeably under 30 years of age. We stand near the exit. We stare. No one stares back. We give each other a glance, and well over sixty seconds after our grand entrance, we make our great escape. I think we're proud of ourselves, because we did it. We went to Ferrara's club to go to the gay night, all by ourselves, to see what we could see. And then it sucked, so we left.
Moral of the story: it's nice not to care. I have not had a crush since I've come to Italy, and it's not strange. Yes, I did shower and shave before going out last night, and had on one of my nicer shirts, but I knew that I wasn't looking for anything, or anyone. Without expectations, hopes, or my standard delusions, I never gave disappointment a chance to cross my path.
Am I a more relaxed person being in Italy? Or am I less passionate? Less stressed or more dull? Sinceramente, non me ne frega, perché sono contento.