Finding romance online is never easy. It is 7. I know the time because the duomo, candy-coloured and resplendent behind us, has struck the hour, and I realise I have just heard the death knell of my blind date. I blame myself β all the photos on his profile were taken from his right side. This is a fairly new business that sees tourists log on to the smartphone dating app on holiday, which is as seedy as it sounds.
Tinder is a global success story. Every day, as the founders recently told the New York Times , the app makes more than a billion matches. Still, Tinder has its advantages: provided you arrange quick meet-ups and keep your standards low, you can cram several encounters into one day. I am staying at Palazzo Parigi, a cappuccino-coloured palace of a hotel on the corner of Brera, which is where I arrange to meet Fabio for a coffee. Parigi has recently been renovated to a state of frankly absurd luxury.
Everything is marble. Flower arrangements teeter on every surface. Then I see him, on the terrace. I quickly text an excuse and get the hell out.
Later, fate gets its own back. I make a plan to meet a filmmaker over an aperitivo at the Sheraton, in an up-and-coming district near Navigli famous for its nightlife, and steel myself with a negroni at the infamously experimental Nottingham Forest bar. On first sight of Fabio, I am buoyed. Fit, I think, and after a chat funny! Exhausted, I get in touch with Ilaria Perrone, a year-old Italian blogger, for some guidance. Ilaria has been blogging about sex and love for two years and has become quite a figure on the Milanese scene.
Last month she was interviewed about the sexual antics of Italian men and caused a furore when she revealed that β gasp β Italian men were not the wining-dining romantics we believed them to be. They wanted one-night stands. They had desires and fetishes. But, as Ilaria explains, the problem is that women are catching up.
