On being seen, and seeing in return

There is an old, very Italian idea that to be looked at properly is itself a form of nourishment. Not stared at. Not appraised. Looked at — with the kind of attention you would give a piece of music you were trying to learn by heart.

I grew up in a country where eye contact is currency. Where the waiter remembers what you ordered last summer. Where the woman selling tomatoes asks how your mother is, and means it. You learn very early that desire — the good kind — is mostly attention. Generous, unhurried attention. The kind that says: I am not in a rush, and you are not a task on my list.

When two adults manage to look at each other that way, even for an evening, something genuinely rare happens. The performance falls away. There is no audition for the next date, no anxiety about a text that may or may not come. There is only this room, this candle, this glass of wine, this conversation that is, for once, allowed to wander.

I think that is what most people are actually looking for, even when they don't know how to ask for it. Not a fantasy. Not a transaction. Just the experience of being met — with care, with curiosity, with the assumption that you are worth lingering over.

That is what I try to offer. And, honestly, what I look for in return.