An Italian actor ghosted me

so do I go to Napoli on my own?

Bibliotheque Mazarine, poste 118

3 September 2025 Paris, France

Nota bene: This article reflects my personal experience, thoughts, and feelings. It is not intended to defame or harm anyone’s reputation.

Preface

Hello world. It’s Danie Laurel. I’d been contemplating starting a substack, after I discovered Margherita Missoni’s where she shamelessly called Missoni’s CEO a Maschist. She said something like, I’ve always loved to journal and now I feel voyeuristic about it. That line set off a lightbulb in my head, for it was indeed the answer to my Instagram “over-sharing” crisis – I feel like expressing myself but then the outlet is just so curated, the space to caption so limited, it puts you in a box. And since it needs to come with visuals, I feel like I am constantly having to process what that looks like. It consumes you, but I do make the most out of it, probably. If you know me well enough though, you will know that my heart, my brain aches to write – but how, with what extra resources of time and energy, in which platform. I want to be able to write spontaneously, stream-of-consciousness-y, in universal terms, and with no true limitations. I’ve always been so hesitant because, what if I sound like such an emotional brat wanting attention? How do I turn personal thoughts into abstract art? I’ve always known – I do not want to write blog posts about what to do in Paris, about tips and tricks of motherhood, financial literacy tips. I just want to express and tell some stories about my life, now almost 40 years in, because it’s a rich and complex life. I’ve spent some time sporadically, sort of perusing my old journals, thinking – in my academic cap – how to organize this “data” for it to become a book, à la Annie Ernaux. But I’m not there yet; I have so many things on my mind still, so many things on my plate that even this time at the Bibliothèque is limited, with a meter running to pay my Filipino (male) nanny to be with my infant son. It’s not even so that I can walk around Parisian streets and daydream; it’s just so I have time to process with words on print. I do often cringe at those diary entries, for ultimately many things I have documented in my life have also been so banal and juvenile that it will take long to sift through. My life story will have to wait, and in its place, I will write essays, bits and pieces as they happen to me, or as they come back to my memory. Forgive me if this preface is long and winding; I will iterate I promise; and bear with me as I do.

It started with Books, as love stories do

Where and hence, I cut to -- Something very strange, so peculiar, straight out of a movie, and yet possibly very common happened to me these past weeks that I thought, okay maybe here is a story to share. Insert title of this entry: An Italian Actor Ghosted Me, so do I go to Napoli on my own? title style is an homage to Jenette McCurdy’s provocation.

The story goes – There is this Italian contemporary cult book series that some friends and I got obsessed with. I was reading it since maybe 2014 when they started translating it into English. I remember the last book took a while to translate, we were waiting with bated breath and had pre-ordered it on Amazon; I had tried to read an excerpt in Italian, but it was too much effort for me. To date, those books whose main protagonists were female, are the books which made me feel the most in my life, as it did for a generation of readers. We got so close to the characters, we had small discussions over it. Eventually they turned it into a TV series, which yet again my friends and I became so passionate over: what would the characters look like, how would this town be portrayed, oh my god – it’s the same as I imagined. Like how comic book fans congregate around their Marvel or DC universes, so too did we consume the series. In a secondary role was an actor, who at that time was young and up-and-coming whose physical appearance took my breath away. Tall and skinny and dark-haired, the best way to describe him was masculine. He was oozing masculinity, with a deep wrinkle in between his eyebrows, he looked older and wiser for his age. He didn’t look like a happy person, always dark and brooding and even angry… but when he did smile, his entire face wrinkled and distorted and it was a smile straight from the devil, you would look away because of the intensity of it. He was exquisite.

Bored and single at the height of the pandemic six years ago in early 2020, I was watching the series stuck at home and looked him up on Instagram. Back then, he had something like 13k followers. I posted a story of the laptop screen with him on it, tagging him which led to a DM reply. Excitedly, I continued the conversation, and that led to some very unforgettable weeks of sexting with some voice messages that made me enjoy practicing my Italian. We made casual plans to eventually meet once the restrictions would be lifted, for indeed my sons Francesco and Mattia were set to go to Italy with their father that summer whereas I would gallivant as I usually do in Paris. “Vado a trovarti in Italia.” “Andiamo a Parigi insieme, non sono mai stato,” (“I’ll come to see you in Italy.” “Let’s go to Paris together, I’ve never been.”) Our conversations led him to tell me about his family, which I had only then discovered was very well-regarded in Italy. He carried the name of one of his ancestors. It was like meeting some hot young actor named Honoré de Balzac whose great-great-great-grandfather was, in fact, Honoré de Balzac. (So henceforth let’s call this guy, Balzac). I didn’t think much of it at the time, I was deep into my news anchoring career, I won the Asian TV award in those next months for best News Anchor. I was homeschooling my 2 children; I was established in Manila with no immediate plans to move to Europe. In 2020, I had nothing to lose and all the excitement to gain, having this Instagram mini-relationship with my super on-screen crush that I’d probably never really meet in real life. Nothing materialized, and indeed it took more than 3 years, and an entire life turned upside-down before I managed to ever set foot in Europe again.

I eventually met someone who would become the father of my third child, interestingly in the same manner, but in the opposite situation for he was even more dedicated as a “fan”. He had been reaching out for 2 and a half years before I finally replied. When that relationship took a serious turn, I told Balzac I couldn’t do our little chats anymore and we left it there. Six years of silence.

A Summer non-fling

In July of this year, I was in Hong Kong, at a beautiful apartment in Repulse Bay with my beautiful children, wounds of my last relationship which ended just a few months prior still very sore. Psychologically I had already left that relationship and knew the chapter was closed when I flew out of Manila with Ottavio. When I arrived at the airport and turned on my data roaming, I received a long WhatsApp from my ex, telling me in earnest that he had met someone, with our son barely 8 months on this earth. I took 2 days to process that, unable to sleep in my anxiety. But then after 2 days, I woke up with a resolve to truly enjoy singlehood because now I had been pushed into it. That led to Hong Kong becoming a little parenthesis, where I welcomed the attention of some very attractive men. I would tease and have fun, but it would not lead to me ever staying in their beds, I was simply not ready for it. I was just dipping my feet back into a world I thought I had left, realizing – not only did I still “have it”, but suddenly in embracing my freedom after birthing 3 sons, I felt more wanted than ever.

It was with this newfound confidence after months of building back my self-worth from a post-partum break-up and complete loss of a second chance of a life I had dreamt of, that I searched Balzac on Instagram and reached out: Ti ricordi di me? Certo che mi ricordo, Daniela. (“Do you remember me? Of course I remember you, Daniela.”) Six years later, he was at his acting prime, accoladed and recognized, with the press always citing both his talent and his family name for the two were indistinguishable. He was beautiful as ever, becoming ever darker, broodier, more masculine as he aged. From a little crush, it turned into a physical and artistic obsession. We spent the next 2 months connecting in a lighthearted way, with some affection from this little history “6 years in the making” and a sexual tension whose fire we planned to finally put out on September, with me booking flights to see him in Napoli.

While the messages were short, they were consistent. Yet the affection was imbalanced, with me wanting to know him, everything about him, wanting a love affair worthy of novels, wanting to arrive at the airport in Napoli scanning the crowd for this beautiful man, running to his arms. Where his idea was just to have a good hard fuck, some nice restaurants to take me to, and a little conversation in between (but not too much). That gap led to resentment from both parts. To me, I could not understand why he didn’t want to know me more – serious relationship or casual, isn’t life too short to have half-baked love affairs? To him, I kept wanting to push the boundaries he had clearly set for himself: “I don’t do WhatsApp or Instagram, Daniela. We will connect in person”. I would measure my words so as not to push him away, but at the same time question why on earth I was doing that: I had gone through so much in my life to have to tone myself down for a man. I wanted to be authentic, and authentic me, today especially, is raw, is healing, but is also full of yearning. I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be heard, I wanted to feel a connection, future or no future, and I had a man who would not reply to my messages, who would never initiate a conversation, who would deliberately tell me to stop romanticizing, and who eventually made me question my self-worth. Was I clingy? Was I crazy? I would listen to my voice notes repeatedly, read my texts, edit them before sending. Surely, I held myself back, I was checking myself all the time, and yet to him, I was still too much.

I am contemplating as I write this. And what happened to me, was not just that I was vulnerable and fresh off a break-up. I had had fun with other men, I could keep it chill and casual and not get attached. I was intentional on focusing on myself, as I still am and always was even with Balzac’s strong pull. What happened was something completely different. In the imbalance of affection, I started to believe in an imbalance of worth. I started feeling – this guy is out of my league, he can get anyone he wants. I started internalizing that struggle, felt the need to assert myself even more which led to some form of self-sabotage. I began to test him; would he love me if I did this. If I were a little too annoying. I had confidence in his interest in me but also walked on eggshells and everyday was a battle between – I should pull back and mirror his energy and Fuck it. I’ll lay all my cards out there and if he doesn’t want me then he can get out of my life.

And true enough, I watched the story I created unfold like the plot twist of a novel. The messages became more and more stern, I became more and more up in arms, both defensive and desperate for him to go back, go back to how he was. And the anxiety to keep him close to me emotionally, led him to becoming colder to the point of meanness. That meanness came to a head a few days ago when he said the words, What is wrong with you? Stop talking. Make it easy.

Those words triggered very early childhood traumas in me where I grew up in a household where we could never really talk or express our feelings. And then over time as I grew into an intelligent woman, the idea of me being judged for my thoughts online, as so many women, the mere fear of expressing ourselves, a centuries old tale of women being silenced (I insert here Colette whom I am currently reading, a woman who had to use her husband’s name in order to publish). If we are too emotional, if we are too complicated, if we don’t “make it easy”, if we keep talking. I already told you, I don’t want to talk and you send me these 3-minuter voice messages. Stop it.

And I said, no Balzac. You stop it. You are being Machista. And then I said, with all the anger and belief in myself – Never tell me to shut up ever again. Never again. I need to think very well whether I still want to know you.

No apologies were given, just a one-liner excuse. And then, radio silence. In my desperation to make amends, I sent a last-ditch effort olive branch, and a last reasonable text to please respond. It would have taken him literally 2 seconds to say, “I’m sorry, Daniela but this isn’t working, let’s leave it at that.” But he wasn’t good enough to do so.

The silence was deafening. I spent 2 days in anxiety, feeling that I had lost the best thing I could’ve had. This actor, not just any actor, but the actor, the one I wanted for so long, the one with the name. What was I supposed to do now, go back to normality? It wasn’t so much an attack on my ego but the feeling that I was put in my place. Like, see this was out of your league, you should’ve done differently, you should’ve put your best foot forward, a man like that is worth adjusting for. You should’ve just shut the fuck up. You should have STOPPED TALKING.

I chatted with my best friend, and I bought a pack of cigarettes, to process this pain from losing something I never even had to begin with. But was it real pain? It surely wasn’t love. It’s just the sting of:

Me: You know what the feeling is? It felt like he put me in the trash.

Best friend: He’s the trash.

Over the next 2 days, I booked medical appointments – at first thinking, okay I will focus on what I can control and I’m due some blood tests and a mammogram. During the echographie mammaire, my head and heart still in Balzac-land, suddenly the doctor stopped, and I saw a little circle on the screen. He measured it and printed it out. And I started to quietly panic. In the waiting room with Tavi, I thought oh god, this is it. This is the moment, like so many of my friends had, where I will be told “Madame, we found something…”. But instead he said “nothing to be worried about, there is a cyst, but it is banale.”

I walked out of the clinic pushing the stroller, and thought, Okay Tavi, mamma is good, I am healthy. I thought, the loss of Balzac was compensated by the universe still being on my side.

That night, I went on a doomscroll Instagram binge of Italian actors, some hot, a lot not. Some great, others, just doing what they do. I realized, it’s just a job that everyone is free to pursue. It led me to discover some Italian movies and Netflix series I should like to watch. And I thought back at my own achievements and credentials and thought, oh no Dan. Why didn’t you think you were good enough? What was it that made him seem so unreachable, so special, so divine, so elusive. If he looked the exact same way but was a waiter in a bar or someone with a corporate job who would’ve said the exact same things to you, you would have been out the door months prior. It’s so interesting how the world works to create echelons when we are all just… (as Obama said) folk. We are all just regular folk.

It made me think of myself, too, in a different context. In my pseudo-celebrity image, also with a strong surname that make people always give me special treatment when I say it out loud. Is that what men feel for me, too. Is that what my ex felt for me for so long, that made him self-sabotage and deliberately make me give up on him despite how much I loved him. And how painfully sad though, that these things operate on such artificial levels. Does that merit ghosting anyone? I imagine there’s a special place in hell for people who can’t be bothered to be kind and send a proper closure text for 2 minutes. If someone does that to you, always remember it’s their failure to act correctly and not yours.

So, I still have the flights booked to Napoli next week. And I’m on the fence of whether to go and make a solo trip out of it as a pre-40^th birthday gift, sort of turn the situation around and have the time of my life or just cancel it enjoy my charmed life in Paris and not look back. I’ll let you know.

But for now, thank you, Balzac – there is one thing you gave to me: you made me write again.

D