“I am only here because my phone was stolen. We met through one of those apps. You know. Swipe left. Swipe right.” He grinned cheekily.

Keira deflated. Dating apps weren’t exactly Italy specific. There still might be something to her story though. Maybe the Italian youths embraced those kinds of technologies in different ways from their American counterparts.

“So, do you think it’s love?” Keira asked. “With this girl you met on the app?”

“Of course,” he said. “She is beautiful. It is always love when you meet a girl that pretty.”

“There are lots of pretty girls,” Keira said. “What makes this one so special you can claim to love her?”

He shrugged again. “I love them all. If they are beautiful, I love them.”

Keira realized then that her definition of love and this young man’s differed greatly.

Just then, a woman in the seat beside leaned over then, chiming in, “Your assignment is naïve. Italy has no romance. Naples, especially. Have you seen the city?”

Keira’s brief encounter with Naples so far hadn’t filled her with any sense of romance at all. It was a crowded, dirty, intimidating place, like the worst parts of New York City. But she’d been hoping there might be an underbelly of romance beneath the grime, some kind of angle she could take; passion and anger were both hot-headed emotions, after all.

The woman continued ranting, much to the amusement of the other Internet cafe patrons.

“The men here chase women, sweet-talk them, say it is love, but they are all having affairs. It is just a game to them. Breaking hearts. Everyone is out for themselves. They say they love you because it is fun for them but the love does not endure. How many lovers do you have?” she demanded of the boy Keira had been originally interviewing.

He chuckled and shrugged in his nonchalant, arrogant way. “Seven. Maybe more.”

“You see!” the woman cried, passionately. “And he tells them all, Oh baby I love you, you are the only one for me. Pigs. The lot of them.”

The heated nature of the conversation was making Keira feel very uncomfortable.

“So you don’t think Italy is the most romantic country in the world?”

The woman shook her head emphatically. “That is a myth, just like the monogamous man is also a myth!”

The young man beside her laughed aloud. Like the rest of the people in the cafe, he seemed amused by her passionate anger. Keira felt awful to have caused the scene.

She looked up at Antonio. “I’ve got all I can from here, can we head back to the hotel now?”

The experience was making her exhausted.

Antonio gave her his displeased look, as though she were acting like an ungrateful brat, but stood and headed out of the cafe. Keira followed, looking back over her shoulder at the passionate argument that had erupted between the woman and the man.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, then ducked outside, leaving chaos in her wake.