About ten years ago, my girlfriend and I were in Italy for a while. In no time, we both became exhausted by the Italian men trying to pick her up. She was frustrated than me because I kinda a found the whole thing amusing. It seems like the moment they saw her with me, it wasn’t so much as having any strong desires for or believing that they could actually pick her up. I realized that instead, they immediately set out to compete with the stereotype of a black man. I viewed it as all good fun, though it was frustrating for my girlfriend. The incredible thing about the Italian guys is that they are charming and in a way funny. Telling them that she was actually my wife tended to end the speculation.
But they always overdo their “lothario-in-the-wing” routine which made me doubt the reputation well-honed by them. Additionally, when I lived in northern Europe I knew quite a few Italian women who were loathed to date an Italian man. They said that Italian men were all talk, relying heavily on the mouth to make up for other deficiencies elsewhere. Who knows what to believe?
So here we mourn the loss of Maurizio Zanfanti, dubbed the Romeo of Rimini. Maurizio’s claim to fame is simply that he is Italy’s most famous lothario with over 6,000 conquests. Unfortunately, though, the Romeo of Rimini will not be seeing his 7,000th conquest. He had a massive heart attack at 63 while supposedly in the act of another touristic conquest, 40 years his junior. What else were they going to tell us – that he had a heart attack while pushing his stalled car up a hill or while milking the cow? Hardly. Legends are created, not born. Romeo’s legend, in case anyone was in doubt is now enshrined in stone or the heart of many of his conquests: “Romeo,” it says “is really fucking dead.”
