Please do not put your hand in your underwear

I begin my tale with a recent story about a friend I will call Web Cam Casanova, or just Cas since we are among friends. A remnant of what was a wine and gnocchi-filled semester "studying" in Italy two years ago, the friendship between Cas and myself is maintained mostly via facebook chat at odd hours late at night. More often than not, these convenient conversations occur around 10 pm EST, or 4 am his time when he is rolling back from bars and feeling frisky.

Being naive, and eternally optimistic that Italian men are not actually as sleezy as their general reputation paints them to be, I saw these mini-conversations as an opportunity to stroll down memory lane, practice a little bit of my Italian, and laugh at Cas' supremely terrible English. Until two nights ago in fact, this was indeed the comfortable formula of our chats...and then we skyped.

While any normal, average 20-something girl would immediately run when hearing the words "skype" and "you have cam, no?" uttered in the same breath from a foreign male acquaintance she has not seen in two years, I, not being one to shy away from a potentially ridiculous situation agreed hesitantly, uncoiled the cable on my dusty web cam and logged in to Skype.

Prepared to "parlare un po' d'Italiano" I accepted Cas' video call and positioned myself so that the light would catch me at my most flattering and slimming angle (does anyone else watch their own video to make sure they still look good on Skype more than check out the other person??). As if speaking broken Italian/English staring at an egregiously pixilated screen would not be awkward enough, Cas appeared, reclining in bed wearing just his boxers and a set of bedroom eyes. All that was missing was a red rose clenched between his teeth.

And so began a strangely-worded debate about the merits (or lack thereof) of...skbanging I suppose I will call it. Cas starts heating up down south and decides to whip out his penis and checks in with me, "It is big no? tell me...what you think?" (Mental dialogue at this point: "Sign off. Not hard." Yet curiousity gets the best of me.) "E io che pensavo che il David fosse piccolo!" (And I thought that the David was small!) Cas laughs, and I see that this will take more a more direct explanation of why this situation is really fucking weird.

I proceed to explain in the simplest English I can, after many failed attempts at explaining: "We...just friends...solo amici!"

Cas: "Ahh yes, but, you tell me, it is normal or not normal, this?"

Me: (REALLY!? I have to answer that for you??) "NOT NORMAL! Weird. Strano. In America, this is weird."

Cas: Continues trying to convince me to try a little digital get-down sesh. (Oh yea N'Sync late 90's).

Me: Last try. "Ok. It is not normal. You and me= only friends...When we talk...Please do not put your hand in your underwear."

Sign off.