The Bay Street Diaries

Tatiana - Italian, Tod's Suede Driving Loafers, PR

From the minute I saw him, I idolized him.
For the better part of two years, I continually fantasized about how a life together would be.
I prayed for God to bless me with the opportunity to be with this perfect person.  

I created the idea that he was smart. Driven.
That we would summer in his family’s southern Italian villa as he did with his friends.
That we would frequent Toronto’s best restaurants, sip on Campari.
Fingers adorned in gold purchased from the Ponte Vecchio during our excursions to Firenze.
My imagination regularly gets the best of me.

A couple of years ago, on a balmy September evening, I felt it appropriate to invite him over to my place. 
I had never been so excited.
After months of sly comments over Facebook, and various compliments regarding my resemblance to Victoria’s Secret supermodels, we were finally meeting up.
I spotted him from my window in the most fantastic outfit.
Coloured pants, suede driving shoes, layered cashmere. A dream.

I had prepped my place with freshly cut flowers.
I sliced some lemons and limes, and clipped mint into a tumbler.
I chilled some San Pellegrino in the fridge.
True effort.  

When he walked in, he was charming
This charm quickly morphed into awkwardness.
I expected more conversation. A stronger connection.
We sat there, struggling through small talk.                                                                                  

Finally, after ten minutes, he leaned in for a kiss.                                                                         

Shortly thereafter, our colourful clothes decorated my bedroom floor.                                                      

And boom. It happened so fast.                                                                                        

Literally. He was truly, truly awful in bed.                                                                          

Although, at the time, I had experience with only few sexual partners, I knew enough to know what bad was.                                                                                                                

It was terrible.                                                                                                                

He seemed embarrassed by his lack of stamina, but my desire for his approval quickly led me to comfort him.                                                                                                              

I lied, saying that I enjoyed our encounter.

But I did value the "precious" time we spent together.
I covered up my dissatisfaction, assuming that first-time jitters were the culprit.                    

I was, at best, hopeful.  And at worst, delusional.  

In the three months to follow, we met up various times. More sex.                                                               My worst nightmare came true. 
The sex continuously got worse.
We had no physical chemistry.                                                                                        

And the amicable situation between us tarnished quicker.  

Then I began to receive crude text messages: “How are your tits?” 
This being the most demure.
I consulted my friends.  They helped me to consider the messages playful, instead of rude.               I became more infatuated, hoping everytime that our next encounter would yield a date. I wanted him to like me.  A couple of times we exchanged an hour’s worth of conversation following our subpar sex.
I replayed these conversations dozens of times in my mind.
I was searching for signs that this was more than a bootycall.
It also helped me to feel momentarily better about my desperate and vulnerable position in this "relationship". 

All the while, my great-in-bed boyfriend was sitting at home.                                                

All the while, I.T.PR kept up his charades. 

All the while, I remained one-hundred percent disillusioned.

Then, he told all of his friends about our encounters.   Initially I was flattered, but I quickly clued in to the gravity of the situation.  I was bombarded with crude comments via Facebook, and whispers whenever I ran into his posse publicly.                                                                                                                                                                    

I began to realize two very important things.
For me, it had nothing to do with sex.
For I.T.PR, it had everything to do with sex. 

Most importantly, I began to realize that I looked nothing like Adriana Lima.