What happened when I went on Tinder in Rome

After being in Rome for only a couple hours, I could already tell that Italians love to flirt.

You can’t walk anywhere without hearing some guys whistling and yelling “Bella!” and “Belissima!” when they drive by you in the car. If you walk through the city, a lot of guys try to make eye contact or start a conversation. Basically, women get attention everywhere.

When I opened the Tinder app, matches came in more quickly than in America. Maybe it’s because Italians tend to swipe right on basically everyone? Or maybe they just like foreign girls a lot.

getting matches and messages was not a problem

Sometimes, only seconds after a match, I received a text like “Hey” or “Hey girl” and they kept replying super fast. I barely could keep up with all the conversations at the same time and the phone was buzzing non-stop.

Once the “Heys” were said, the texts became a lot more diverse. Some were trying to come to the point pretty quickly and asked “why on Tinder?”; “Do you have a boyfriend?” and “Are you here by yourself?” but others were quite polite, introduced themselves and asked about my day.

Once I sorted out the guys that were mainly interested in a hook up, I arranged a date with two of the leftover ones.  I can tell you already, they were, let’s say, interesting.

On the first date, I met a guy called Allesandro at a coffee/bar. He then tried to take me to a public place he claimed he just had to show me. I did not approve of this mysterious place, so I persisted on staying at the bar, which he did not seem to be very happy about.

The conversation was not very entertaining as he barely smiled, barely asked any questions and talked about himself most of the time. That was kind of surprising as he struggled with the language and also didn’t really seem to be happy with his life right now.

The wine we drank was the highlight of the date.

Once we finished, he asked me where to go next. Did I want to go anywhere? No. So I sent my friend a text and she called with an “emergency.” I’ve never done such a fake call before but it seemed the best way to get out of it. Very cliché and at first he was disappointed and didn’t seem to believe me. And yes, I did kind of feel bad about it, but I was just not into a longer night with him and a possible hook up.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture with him and the screenshot I wanted to take of his messages was not possible either because once I got back, he had already deleted our match. I guess that was his response to my “emergency.”

Conclusion of date one: boring guy, kind of rude, but not bad looking.

The second date I went on was the opposite of the first one. His name was Fabrizio and we met in a café one afternoon. He was tall, pretty toned and came on his scooter, wearing dark sunglasses (which was kind of sexy). The conversation was easy, he smiled and laughed a lot and actually seemed to be interested.

Conclusion of date two: polite and good-looking guy you can easily talk to.

Selfie with my second date

Obviously, I personally wasn’t interested in a hook up but one of my friends wanted to have some fun. She met up with some Italians and had a great time.

“It was definitely an exciting experience and I would totally do it again. Rome is the city of Romance,” she said about to head out on another Tinder date. “One guy even paid more than $45 for my cab ride to his apartment and back.”

So in the end, you can find a guy in Rome for every kind of date you’d like. No matter if you’re just interested in getting coffee or wine together or an actual hook up. It might just take some time to filter out the right one.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

● If a guy doesn’t pay on the first date, you should ghost him 
● I asked Tinder dudes if they’d go down on me with a full bush, and I’ll never wax again
● That viral video of the creepy Tinder date is total bullshit, sorry