Italian mature men you would chose as an example

[jhonny9546]

Hi friends! Johnny here!

I'd like to ask you if, in your imagination and experience, there's an Italian man you'd call a "mature man", or someone you could look up to, like you admire.
I'm really curious to know, since we all come from different countries, if anyone has a contemporary Italian character they like.

 

[Arete]

I'm German, and we mostly consider Italians "the funny guys with good food". Most people don't take Italians too seriously because you guys are "easy going" and therefore "hard to take seriously" (no offense).

Most people I know prefer eating Italian food way over our own country's cuisine, including myself. Mostly for that single reason, you are well liked overall. Even by rightwing extremists (lol).

But, "mature man", from my perspective as a stereotypical German, I don't think I have ever met anyone. Even at the time, I was on vacation in Italy. You guys seem to beat around the bush way too much instead of just getting to the point.

The part we admire most is your general lifestyle. We are all about efficiency, and you seem to be the polar opposite in that regard.
It's like you prioritize enjoying life, while we try to "succeed" in life. Kind of ironic, because enjoying life means succeeding. Publicly we say enjoying oneself is lazy, but secretly most people admire this, I think.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Valentino Rossi. If motorcycle racing was American football, that guy would be Tom Brady.

 

[BaronOfHair]

Hi friends! Johnny here!

I'd like to ask you if, in your imagination and experience, there's an Italian man you'd call a "mature man"...

De Niro's an octagenerian as of this writing, though referring to him as "mature"

May be more of a stretch than referring to downtown Karachi as The Subcontinent's South Beach

 

[Bokanovsky]

Silvio Berlusconi.

I hear he knows how to throw a party.

 

[Bokanovsky]

I'm German, and we mostly consider Italians "the funny guys with good food". Most people don't take Italians too seriously because you guys are "easy going" and therefore "hard to take seriously" (no offense).

Most people I know prefer eating Italian food way over our own country's cuisine, including myself. Mostly for that single reason, you are well liked overall. Even by rightwing extremists (lol).

But, "mature man", from my perspective as a stereotypical German, I don't think I have ever met anyone. Even at the time, I was on vacation in Italy. You guys seem to beat around the bush way too much instead of just getting to the point.

The part we admire most is your general lifestyle. We are all about efficiency, and you seem to be the polar opposite in that regard.
It's like you prioritize enjoying life, while we try to "succeed" in life. Kind of ironic, because enjoying life means succeeding. Publicly we say enjoying oneself is lazy, but secretly most people admire this, I think.

On a general level, this stereotype holds some truth but as with most things, your mileage may vary. I've met Italians whom most would consider to be "serious people" (i.e. engineers, scientists, doctors, etc.) Similarly, I've met plenty of Germans who are the polar opposite of efficiency.

I personally think the reason why the German society is so organized and structured has less to do with Germans being serious people and more with a culturally ingrained respect for authority and propensity to follow rules. Where some more libertarian-minded nations may regard rules as a necessary evil, the Germans seem to love them. Even rules that hardly make any sense. They follow rules for the sake of following rules, which explains the Nazis and the rapidly unravelling experiment known as the EU (which was essentially created by Germans).