Love, from the Net to the mattress

This article is published in number 37 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until September 14, 2021

The love that is not there, the love that must remain clandestine, the invented love, the “asshole” love, the unrequited love, the love lost in disenchantment and deception, the love found . Love declaimed: “I want to dedicate a few moments of my speech to my favorite actress: Nicoletta Braschi. I can’t even dedicate this award to her, because the award is hers. We have done everything together for forty uninterrupted years of work.

I know only one way of measuring time: with you and without you », said a moved Roberto Benigni from the stage of the Venice Film Festival, holding up the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. He then admirably concluded: «Being a woman is a mystery that we men do not understand. Groucho Marx was right when he said “men are women who have not made it“. And that’s the truth. I couldn’t be like you Nicoletta. If something beautiful and good I have done in my life has always been crossed by your light. Ours was a love at first sight, indeed at eternal sight ».

«Hell, it’s the others», wrote Jean-Paul Sartre in 1944 in the play Behind closed doors on three people ready to torture each other. Today, this seems to be the most widespread belief. You escape from relationships bent over your smartphone, indifferent to strangers, distrustful of others. Before the internet and cell phones, afternoons were spent at home waiting for the phone to ring. The romantic writings on the walls have been replaced by likes. It takes half a minute on Facebook to find out everything about a person. It only takes a few moments to transform from a suitor to a harasser. Once upon a time, people wrote. Pages of diary, between thoughts, tears and hopes. Today, at most, a status is written.

From chats to social media, from dating apps to sexting, technology has disrupted the way of living courtship. From libertines Dangerous relationships written by Laclos in the 1700s we ended up in the age of the aphasic amorous connections of love at the time of the web: you have to meet, like each other and have the courage to send a whatsapp. It is the time of egocracy, being in love with yourself leads to overturning life on the network: follow the ex on Instagram, see who he replaced you with on Facebook, read his thoughts on Twitter. Then Benigni emerges in Venice and looks like a reminder of the analog era with his extraordinary declaration of love to his wife. If love is simply madness, as Shakespeare said, it is a “madness” that cannot be controlled, much less with a mouse. After all, software cannot be made of an enigma. So, meditate on this joke: “I was without internet connection for a few hours and met a wonderful person here at home. She says she is my wife».

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