Contact

       Yesterday afternoon I sent a text message to French Wine Baron. I was on my way to work, heading to pick up my two girl charges and take the train out with them to the countryside. My job often requires me to travel on weekends, and this weekend was no exception. I waited for the bus and composed the following: 

         ¨ Hi FWB...I'm leaving this afternoon for the countryside, but I know when I get back on Sunday you'll be there, and I'll be happy to see you:) See you soon...bisous.¨

         I have never been able to figure out, whether in France or America, how a rhythm of contact should be sustained. In the good old US of A, we seem to have pre-existing, agreed upon, though somewhat unspoken, rules about dating and contact. You meet. You exchange numbers. You go on a date. You wait a standard three days to get in touch again, the interval in which you, if you are female or a seemingly a-typical guy, you sit by the phone nervously thinking wondering if the other person is going to call you. Maybe it didn't go as well as you thought it did. Maybe you thought they were more interested than they were. Can they just call already dammit? After a few dates, you eventually have a Define The Relationship  (DTR) talk: are you exclusive, are you not? Are you friends with benefits? Are you in an open relationship? There's a whole gamut I won't run, but needless to say, relationships these days come in wide variety. 

          One of the things I enjoy about dating Frenchmen, however, is that you tend to know, very quickly, where you stand...what I mean to say is if they are interested in you or not, and what the extent of that interest is. For example, I once met an Eiffel Tower Trinket Salesman ( an ETTS...and they're EVERYWHERE) while waiting for some gal pals at Notre Dame who wanted to take me to coffee. 

          ¨ I can't...I'm meeting up with friends.¨
          ¨ Just really quickly, we can go to a café.¨
          ¨ NOW!?¨ I blurted out. He was persistent and NOT GETTING I was NOT interested.
          ¨ Yeah. You have fifteen minutes to spare, no?¨

          I ended up giving him a fake number and I pity the poor soul at the other end of that phone. The point is: if a Frenchie is interested, he'll likely get your number, set up a date within 48 hours, and proceed to call you or get in touch of you nearly every day if he really wants you. French women seem to live by the standard of  ¨if he doesn't get a hold of you at least once a day he isn't into you, drop him.¨

          Admittedly, for an American, this seems a bit over the top. First, I've noticed that some of these men are straight up ANXIOUS if I do not get back to them ASAP. Monsieur Engineer, for instance, was convinced he'd offended me and apologized profusely for whatever he'd done and I had to repeat that no, I was not offended, just busy. These men can be straight up needy! Second, I am culturally used to not getting back in touch with someone right away. I am not a stage five clinger and have the confidence to let a guy get back to me. I let it lie. I have a life, I'm independent. If he's interested, he'll get in touch with me, and it's my sort of test: if he doesn't, he isn't that into me. His loss. I move on. 

           Mr. Lyon hasn't gotten back to me, no big deal. French Wine Baron has done the best he can over the past twelve months, and I've been impressed. Monsieur Lawyer wanted to see me at the end of this week, but I've been sick, and now I'm at work. Monsieur Engineer has been hit or miss, but he's also been finishing up his apartment hunt, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I texted him this morning to ask how he was and say happy weekend. We'll see what happens there. 

              E has been in touch with me non-stop. 

*  *  * 

              E's Ex has been in town. She no longer lives in Europe, nor is she of European origins, but she was a student here for a while. He mentioned when were at La Pagode last week that it was very much over for them, that now he's just on the hunt for Her, with a capital H. I sat and nodded and afterward left for my date with Bon Marché boy. 

             On Monday, he thought I was still at work in the countryside. 

            ¨No, silly. Every weekend I work I'm back on Sunday nights. The girls can't miss the expensive school their dad pays for!¨ 

             He was going to the Chinese film festival while His Ex went shopping on the Champs-Elysée. Apparently she's quite the shopper. I joked and said I'd been to the Champs--that morning--only I ran it instead. I like shopping, but I explained I don't do it for hours on end. There are bigger things in life to go explore and things to see and do. I found it curious he was texting me. 

           On Tuesday morning they left for Bordeaux, to see his family, and returned Thursday afternoon. He texted me from Bordeaux. Knew I was sick, asked how I was. I told him I had a job interview on Friday. Thursday he wanted to know what I was doing and how I was feeling. 

             ¨ I'm on my way to birthday drinks for my friend,¨ I said. I was on metro line one heading towards Bastille. I do have a life other than men. He invited me to a movie later that night, so I agreed. I met him on the Champs-Elysee, but the film we were going to see didn't accept his UGC unlimited card and he admitted that half the films in the festival weren't any good anyway, so we ended up crossing to the other side of the Champs and seeing Oliver Stone's Savages, which was good. 

              He had decided to speak to me in English with his horrible accent that night, but it was mostly to tease me. He likes to do this, you see, either via text message or in person. In my head I compose things I would like to say to him, but never do, and never will. Or maybe soon I will boil over and I will just blurt them all out. Things like ¨If I didn't know any better, Monsieur, I'd say you were flirting with me¨ or ¨what is it you want from me?¨ or ¨ I scare you. I scare you because I am younger than you, and you've been here before. But you're lonely. You're lonely and you wouldn't want to spend so much time with me if you weren't¨ or ¨ Why do you want to spend so much time with me when your Ex is here?¨

              We sat in the movie and whispered jokes back and forth and he asked me questions about points where I laughed since we saw the movie with French subtitles and the wordplay was not well translated. It reminded me of when we saw Faust in June and I held his hand in the theater, the night before I left for the summer for work. 

                Only I didn't hold his hand this time. 

              On the metro he sat across from me and teased me more and when we got to rue du Bac on line twelve I bise'd him goodbye and tousled his hair as I rose and said goodnight. 

*  *  *

              On Friday after my job interview, E texted to ask how it went. I gave him the deets--the agency needs, without question, for cultural and language reasons, an American to work for a specific client, and explained that if I got the job, with a permanent contract, I could easily ask for citizenship. 

                  ¨ That's not going to be a problem if you become French? ;-P¨ he messaged back regarding the job's need for an American. 

                ¨ At the root of it all, I'll always be American...but I'll take the best of both nationalities: the class and culture of France, the adventurous spirit and ambition of America.¨

*  *  * 

              I do not have to get a hold of E. I do not contact him of my own accord, except on rare occasions. I made this my rule when he decided he did not want to see me in a romantic capacity. I would drop it and see what he did. And he has contact me more since I let him go, without jealousy as this is not my personality. Perhaps it drives him mad that I was so composed when he said those things to me, not more upset, nor more sad, nor angry.  I can still hear him calmly thanking me for my ¨understanding.¨

                  My understanding is not of him, but of the fact that I should not have to convince someone who is dating me they want to keep dating me. Either they do or do not. It is futile to try and convince the unconvinced. 

                    But contact is a tricky thing for me. 

*  *  * 

                   Last night, just before dozing off to sleep, FWB finally responded. He texted me back: 

                  ¨Have a good weekend, see you Sunday. Have a wonderful night...FWB.¨

         

Embrace The Hotness

       Admittedly, dating has never been my forte. I've mentioned previously the emotional baggage I've carried around with me for a while, and for a long time I used every excuse I had in the book--particularly my perfectionism and pursuit of academic excellence--to stay cooped up in my Ivory Tower of Literature and out of the real world. After an existential quarter life crisis in June, I've since realized that is no way to live, and I climbed down from the tower inch by scary inch. It's been liberating to say the least. 

       One thing I continue to struggle with, however, has been my conception of self. This isn't to say I do not like who I am or that I'm uncomfortable or unconfident in my indentity. Quite the contrary. Certain particular life circumstances have fortified my independent nature and willingness to say ¨well, if you don't like me, that's your problem.¨ But in the dating arena all of this goes to shit. As my mother has always said, it is my achilles' heel. What woman hasn't had a moment or two on her dating quest to find The One where she's crumbled a bit? 

        I have two particular conceptions that I'd lugged around with me for a while. The first is what I call ¨Ugly Duckling Syndrome.¨ I am sacrificing myself on the altar of dignity here by posting ¨duckling¨ photo evidence. See to the left. Yes, I know the girl in that photo is a kid. Yes, I know I am no longer her. Yes, I made it through junior high and high school relatively unscathed. But in a society that places so much importance on a woman's external rather than internal beauty, strength of heart, and intellectual force, it is straight up BRUTUAL for a young gifted woman to make it through that passage without difficulty and emotional scaring. I have admittedly since blossomed into a swan, but I have hard a hard time embracing the fact I have become one. Dating did not do anything to bolster my sense of self when I was younger, so I avoided it. 

Lindsay is my name and complete singleness was my game. So much, in fact, we made a joke about it and at the dinner table my family and I would laugh about how I was ¨single and sadulous¨ instead of ¨single and fabulous¨, only in jest though.

The second conception I have is entirely out of my control, and it's what I'd like to call the ¨Cosmic Haha.¨ All you ladies have experienced this. You think something is going splendidly and well and you get your hopes up but then HAHA the universe decides to laugh in your face for whatever which reason and Mr. Wonderful ain't so wonderful anymore. What you thought could've been something good has done to shit. ¨HAHA!¨ the sky above seems to cackle. You have been victim to the "Cosmic HAHA".

It's been twelve years since that photo was taken and I've  come a long way and experienced my share of ¨Cosmic Hahas,¨ but I still have a hard time doing what I call ¨embracing the hotness.¨

*  *  * 

    I'm no means a player, but to have multiple guys chasing me is odd. I don't conceive of myself as a swan and was explaining this to the Diplomat one evening this summer via text message. 

    ¨I don't know what I've done!,¨  I laughed out loud. ¨This is ridiculous!¨ I quipped when I explained I was somehow juggling a Wine Baron, E the Original,  a hot Toulousain, and several Americans. 

     ¨Get used to it,¨ he responded. ¨ETH!¨

     ¨ ?,¨ I sent back. 

     ¨Embrace the hotness. Work it, use it baby. You got it, flaunt it.¨

     I sighed and said I'd try. I have to admit that France is a place where I have become a full on woman. Paris has made me the best possible version of me to date and I think this is part of the reason I am scared to leave: I'm afraid I will lose this Lindsay if I go anywhere else. Contrary to the ¨culture of spectacle¨ that seems to have developed in America, France is also a place where it is culturally acceptable, damn, ENCOURAGED EVEN, to be cultivated, smart as hell, artsy and intellectual. Even for women! Case in point, my current girl crush Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, marquise du Châtelet, a.k.a.Emilie du Châtelet. Married at a young age to the Marquis  du Châtelet, one of the most prominent Parisian aristocratic families of the 18th century, Emilie and her husband were good friends who decided they'd both take lovers and remain amicable, a common practice of the time for marriages of social convenience.

Emilie looking like a BAMF at her desk.

     Émilie's lover was none other than François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire. Voltaire is a pen name formed by rearranging certain letters of his name, as in the 18th century people still wrote the letter ¨u¨ using the latinate ¨v¨. Nonetheless, the two were a bad-ass intellectual power couple and she was, dare I say it, the more gifted of the two. A beast of a woman who, while translating Newton's Principa Mathematica from English to French in her study, stopped momentarily to give birth to one of her children, handed it off to the wet nurse, and continued working. She was a truly avant-garde female scientist fascinated by physics. She was not the most physically attractive woman ever, and did not have a reputation for being so, but man did she work what she had! She embraced her own hotness for what it was and went with it.

       Of her, Voltaire says:  « Jamais une femme ne fut si savante qu’elle, et jamais personne ne mérita moins qu’on dît d’elle : c’est une femme savante. [...] Elle ne parlait jamais de science qu’à ceux avec qui elle croyait pouvoir s’instruire, et jamais n’en parla pour se faire remarquer. »

       " There was never a woman so scholarly as her, and there was never anyone who merited less than what one says of her: she is an erudite woman [...] She only spoke of science with those whom she believed she could teach, and never to make herself stand out."

      Embracing the hotness in this sort of way seems to be a French woman thing. Take again for instance Simone de Beauvoir, another truly gifted woman who used what she had to contribute to the world in a unique and beautiful way. Then we can't forget the iconic Coco Chanel, who literally pulled herself up out of rags to riches with her sewing needle. This sort of ETH attitude isn't unique to the ¨great¨ women of France, but it seems to be built in culturally to the way women care for and carry themselves. 

        A French woman never deprives herself of any pleasure, but learns to take it all in moderation. This certainly applies to food: French women don't get fat and they don't diet, they simply eat more fruit and veggies one day if they had more fattening foods or heavy dessert the day before. Nothing is ever forbidden, just taken in small quantities. The body is a beautiful thing, not to be modified by plastic surgery and artificial diets. French women, on that note, are very comfortable with their bodies! From topless tanning to sleeping in the nude, they love their corps for what it is.

        A French woman never wears much makeup; she saves things like foundation and heavy eyeliner for a special night out on the town. On the other hand, she takes miraculous care of her skin--from head to toe. Body lotion and face cream bought specially from the pharmacy--La Roche-Posay, Avène, Vichy, Bioderma--are applied right after showering to keep her skin baby soft and glowing. At first I thought this was a ridiculous habit and didn't understand it. In May, my mom and I joked about ¨all the CREAMS!¨ they have in France and how you can find a cream for just about anything (which is true, even paradoxically for weight loss). She jokingly suggested I invent a cream called ¨Le Fat-Blaster¨ and market it here...we'll save that project for another rainy day!  Now, however, I have embraced the cream and HOLY COW DOES IT WORK. This, in tandem with the very French habit of drinking lots and lots of water, keeps my skin crystal clear and glowing.

         A French woman uses her best features and plays to her strengths. Always. She knows that physical beauty is only one part of the equation and she uses all her other snares to snag the man she's going after.

         I have certainly become the best version of myself following these principals, and I'd like to keep it that way. I've Embraced the Hotness. However, it was still quite startling to have Mr. Lyon say to me over drinks:

         ¨You must have a million guys chasing you.¨

        I didn't know how to respond except to smile politely and say ¨No, not really.¨

*  *  *

        I don't have a million men chasing me, but I heard earlier in the day from Monsieur Lawyer, last evening's Monsieur Engineer, and (OMG!) tonight from French Wine Baron. In France a single person is a célibataire, so I suppose I am a pluribataire: not quite single, but not quite pinned down either, playing with plurality. This is a strange, foreign place to be in. Quite honestly, it makes me feel like a dirty ass player, though I know men play this game and feel no qualms about it, it's merely considered playing the field. I guess I've requisitioned some of that game for Team Women. 

             FWB is so adorable though. Was happy to report he'd found a temporary internship in Avignon working for the Interrhône organization while he waited to find something in the states. I told him I couldn't be happier for him, and then after he asked, I updated him on my projects and my worries about finding a job here.

              ¨Given your competencies and your degrees, it's only a matter of time,¨ he assuaged me after I mentioned I was worried about finding a job with a CDI and a visa. ¨And you have another year.¨

            He then filled me in on the cocktails he invited me to Monday night for the incoming promotion (read, new class) of brave souls undertaking his Masters program. Asked when I'd be back on Sunday night. Six in the evening...did he want to do dinner in the neighborhood or did he prefer that I make something at my place? 

              ¨ It would be stupid to refuse your cooking, you're an excellent cuisinière,¨ he said coyly. It was settled then. 

                 ¨Curried chicken pasta or something else?¨ I asked. 

                 ¨It doesn't matter, as long as it's made with love about all else...and good wine!¨

                 ¨ Alright, I suppose I'll have to put a lot of love in there for you then...¨ I flirted back. 

                 ¨ You know, it's going to make me very happy to see you again after all this time.¨ He said. 

                ¨ It's you that's best at picking the wine! Tell me what to pick up,¨ was my riposte. 

                ¨No, don't worry, I have three hundred bottles in my cave, don't worry about the wine.¨ 

                Three hundred bottles. Am I dreaming this? 

               ¨ Go off to your wine tasting, hurry! Don't let me keep you!¨ He was on his way out to a friend's to taste since right now it's vendage season. 

                   ¨ Have a good night...see you sunday...bisous.¨ He signed off. 

                   GAH. Embracing the hotness for Sunday, I am so excited, I cannot wait! 

              Tell me like it is ladies, are you Team E: The Original, Team FWB, or Team Monsieur Engineer so far? If so, why? I'd love to hear your take on things...guess we'll see who comes out the winner in the end...maybe one of them, maybe none of them. At least it's fun for now :) 

                    Love,

                    The Sexpat. 

The Doors and Monsieur Lawyer

         Today I am the guardian of the doors, racing through the corridors of life and culling key after key from the set. There are so many of them, a spectrum of doors, spreading out long like a fan, and they overwhelm me. The desire to measure my existence not in minutes or hours but by the number of these gateways is elephantine. I must resist this urge. But can you not say you have never felt it? Have you never felt the desperation of a locked door which taunts you? A door to which no key works? To say you have not is a lie. These doors divide the entrances from the exits, and there is no correct sens de la visite. One may come and go, or come or go, so long as the door is not locked. 

         I am not the guardian, I am the Suppliant of these doors, worshipping their ability to stop me cold before them. I collapse at their feet, humbled. One day I will hold these doors in a handful of dust. 

         But doors are not doors which are men. Each new one is a portal to a possible beginning, and I am the keeper of the keys. What do you do when you silence, sweet and pure, is the only homage you can offer? 

          I want to throw the keys into the Seine. 

*  *  * 

          I should be girlishly giddy right now. Yesterday afternoon I met up with Monsieur Lawyer, a doctoral student in International Law, for coffee. On paper he is all I should want: very intellectual, cultured, a tennis player. Polite. He's olive skinned and dark eyed, of Spanish heritage. A violinist. His father is a clarinetist and might be able to get us tickets to the Opéra National de Paris' production of The Marriage of Figaro. He strongly suggested that I look into doing my PhD here.

            ¨Go talk to your adviser and the head of the department,¨ he emphasized after I shared that last year, Sophie, my directeur de mémoire had praised my work and said it could have been a Master 2 thesis, and Nancy, the head of my department with whom I took a seminar last year, had sighed that she wished they could keep me for my PhD. ¨You could easily get a doctoral contract. The state would pay you to do your PhD here and then you'd be guaranteed another 3 to 4 years.¨

             ¨And then I could demand citizenship?¨

             ¨I looked up the law for you. You can ask for it as soon as you finish your Master 2 this year.¨

             ¨ But then I have to stay during dossier processing.¨

            ¨Yes, but they'll basically automatically give you citizenship if you do your doctorate here. Plus, Hollande's administration is going to be rather cool about naturalizations for the next five years. And c'mon, France is so beautiful! Why leave?¨

          He was more than half flirting with me when he mentioned repeatedly that I should stay in France. I couldn't argue with him though. I don't want to leave. Of all my lovers, France is the love of my life and the most faithful. We had engaging conversation and we do have a lot in common. I liked him. I would see him again.

          But these men are becoming my hallway of doors, with me chasing fickle locks and handles. I am the maestro deftly pairing keys with key holes and sliding metal against metal until the cruel grind halts me. Today I am tired of being alone in the corridor, can I just have one, please?

          The pitiless truth is this: the paradox of dating so many different people is that it can make you feel more alone than ever, can make you realize that all you want is one. One one one is such a simple number and yet the lack of one elicits a staggering melancholia hard wired into the human condition. We are made to be understood. 

           I am not giddy right now because I have gone to the dim, pensive place. The place I go after E texts me thinking I was returning to Paris from the countryside tonight, where I explain that my boss chewed me out last night and I was down about it. That my boss has the same age as him. The place I go, a dark portal, when he responds ¨ And to think an age difference of eight years made me hesitate when I was 27,¨ and then we get to discussing the girl he thought was The One and something passes between us that makes me feel like he gets me.

            He teases me, corrects my grammar, and after I ask him if she was eight years younger or older and he responds ¨younger,¨ I say that I understand why he would've hesitated, she was still a teenager. His response is that ¨she was more mature than even some 24 year old women now.¨ I breathe, try not to read into this ( I am 24 ),  I tell him yes, of course--each person is different--but one cannot look back to the past and what is done is done. I tell him when I was a teenager I learned very quickly what matters and what does not. He does not know this, but losing one of your parents to a heart attack at sixteen will do that to you. I do not share it with him. I do not want to.

            He does not respond, nonetheless. It does not matter. Something has moved between us.

         These are the intangible, impalpable, imponderable and so very real moments that despite all proof to the contrary DO exist. This is the dark matter of my existence, that unknown quantity shifting everything around my universe, unseen. And that these instances exist is nothing short of a miracle, of some divine force within all of us that stems from the truest of all human truths: we are made to be understood and understand, to love and to be loved.

            And yet today I run the hallway, the corridor, perfumed with the eau de toilette of wistful thoughts, holding a key I know will not work to this door. I do not try again, I know it will be a waste of time. But I cannot suppress the desire to want to make an attempt.

               There will be time, there will be time, for a hundred decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.  I shall continue on my journey instead, pressing onward down the passage, the chiming of metal in my pockets like bells.      

Frenchy McWaiterboy

      If you want to get to the root of this whole ¨adventures in dating in Paris¨ thing, I suppose you'd have to blame it on my neighborhood café. At the end of my street is a swanky Parisian café and bistro haunted by the likes of government ministers, tourists passing to nearby sites such as the Musée d'Orsay or the Rodin, locals, and on occasion, Ina Garten, otherwise known as the Barefoot Contessa. I learned this one weekend walzting to the métro and shivering underneath my jacket in the brisk December air ( I am, in some ways, still very Californian) and had to do a double take when I saw her and her husband Jeffrey enjoying breakfast. I later learned that this is one of her favorite places to eat in Paris. I, however, until April of this year had never been.

         I'd spent eight months int he neighborhood, passing to-and-fro on my way to class, to the laundromat, to work, to the grocery story, to the post office, but never daring to go. I'd admired the gendarmes guarding the intersection with austere determination and I occasionally enjoyed turning their heads. Once in a while they were cute and they'd smile. It wasn't until one of my best guy friends in the whole world (if not the best) came to visit me for ten days in April that I finally sat down at this place for a coffee.

          And then, heaven opened up and God shone down and said ¨Let there be pretty garçons du café¨ and the most gorgeous waiter I have ever seen served me one of the best café créme of my life. In a porcelain cup with full fat milk, steamed. When he left I looked across at Best Male Friend and sighed. ¨He was cute,¨ I looked down at the bill. In Paris, occasionally your server's name is labeled on the addition so I found it. Hmm. Did he look like his name? Best Male Friend responded with ¨He looks a little young, doesn't he!?¨ Oh silly Best Male Friend and your silly American Male Ways.  I love you all the same. I left exact cash and we got up to leave.

          I went back to this particular café when my Mom came to visit me at the end of May. Paris was like a ripe peach blushing under the full light of approaching summer and I was there to drink up her nectar. We were hungry the first day she arrived and tired, decided to go do my corner café. I admitted to her that there was an adorable Frenchy McWaiterboy. She was then determined to get me a date. This is why I ( let's steal a word out of Mr. Big's book) abso-fucking-lutely love ma mère.

           Frenchy McWaiterboy ended up being our server, suggested excellent wines, and then insisted we try the most incredible meringued lemon tarte I have ever tasted ( You can't take the American propensity for hyperbole out of me, sorry France!). We went back nearly every night my mom was there, so much in fact we got to know the staff, and she strategized ways for me to ask him to get a drink.  We were there one night with my adopted American uncle over here, my Diplomat. Diplomat took one look at him, then at me, and burst out with:

            ¨My GOD, he's pretty. He's prettier than YOU!¨

            ¨Thanks. Thanks Dip,¨ I shrugged jokingly.

            ¨No, really, those lips! And it's not like any single one of his features is prettier than the other, it's all in harmony. He's beautiful! Are you sure he's not gay?¨

             My Mom and I chuckled and I replied that I didn't know. We three kept brainstorming ideas.
I then came up with the brilliant beyond brilliant idea of taking one of the fancy paper drink coasters and writing ¨ Un verre, peut-être?¨ on the back and leaving it for him. I stole one that night.

            It took me all week to work up the courage to do so, but I finally did my mom's last night in Paris. Then nothing. I thought maybe he hadn't gotten it, and I told B, the BAFFIP ( Best American Female Friend in Paris) everything. We decided to get coffee one Saturday afternoon at my café so I could a) show her Frenchy McWaiterboy and his sexy sexy self and b) work up the nerve to ask him what he was doing that night.

             He saw us, came over, served us our standard café crème, and B admitted he was very pretty. She then tried to get me to ask him what he was doing that night. I froze. I seized up. I couldn't do it. We were on the verge of leaving. We got out of our chairs and I lingered on the corner. I then, in the most effing awkard way possible, way to go Lindsay, asked him what he was doing that night. GAH.

             ¨I'm sorry, I'm not available.¨

              I walked off down the street with B. At least there was no more doubt. Either he wasn't interested....or he was totally gay. Spotting gay men in Europe is nowhere near as easy as it is in say....America. Men here are in general a touch more effeminate and OK with dressing well and grooming well. What we consider ¨metrosexual¨ in the states is pretty much normal here. And unless you're hanging out in the Marais, which somehow happens to be Paris' gay AND orthodox Jewish neighborhood (puzzle me that one...), it can be hard for what my mom dubs her GAYDAR to function.

             ¨He's probably gay,¨ B said.

             ¨Yeah, probably.¨ I sighed. It didn't take the sting away. You see, dating and I, up until it seems now, have never been good friends. I have deliberately avoided it as much as possible because it has been nothing but a thorn in my side that saps me of my positivity. I generally tend to see the glass half-full, but there is well of emotional memory loaded into my psyche from years of school teasing and coping with my own intelligence.

             At a young age, I was identified as Gifted and Talented and sent to special programs. I knew I was smart and I've never tried to hide it, but that meant in junior high (in tandem with normal pre-teen girl worries) braces, glasses, and a frizzball of curly hair that could rival Hermione Granger's, I never felt at ease. Dances in the 7th grade left me in tears, because no one ever asked me to slow dance.

             Things got better in high school, where I felt more at ease among the smart kids, but I was still the girl the guys called to ask for help with homework. Occasionally they told me they had crushes on my other, adorable friends and they wanted my help, so I set them up. Then there were the Queen Bees, waterpolo goddesses who ruled the social scene. I didn't care so much about being popular, but their ease of cuteness irked me. My senior year, the Queen of Queens of these girls, a waterpolo player with whom I shared a Calculus class, didn't get into her first choice college, and I had: UC Berkeley. This particular university has a reputation for admitting brilliant students and it's a prestigious school, but it is said equally that the women who attend are less than aesthetically pleasing.

             Queen of Queens was discussing the less than pleasing aesthetic reputation of the young ladies at this university and looked me up and down, head to toe, like a scanner at a grocery store check out, and blurted out carelessly:

             ¨Well Lindsay, I guess you're not bad...for Berkeley.¨

             I held my tongue and restrained myself. What the hell was THAT supposed to mean? Years later, two Berkeley diplomas with honors in hand, I think Queen of Queens can shove it where the sun doesn't shine.

             At Berkeley, things weren't any easier. Between strands of go-no-where immature college dates and lack of luck with older alumni friends who I felt more in tune with, I doubted myself. Adding to this doubt was a long on again off again saga with a good friend who claimed he wanted to be only friends, but treated me otherwise. I thought I was crazy, inventing things in my head, that he didn't really feel anything for me. But I was so in love with him and so naive that I supposed one day he'd figure things out. He eventually did this past December, but I had figured out too that I didn't deserve the way he treated me, and I did one of the hardest things I've ever had to do: I had to cut him out of my life entirely. After 13 years of friendship starting in elementary school, turning someone you know THAT WELL into someone you used to know is hardly without heartbreak.

             But I did. And this is the emotional baggage I carried with me when Frenchy McWaiterboy turned me down. I was so down and out I called the Diplomat and we got drinks that night in the 6th. We both had difficult life circumstances at the time and we both needed to wallow. We wallowed our way from the Pub St. Germain to Café Mabillon to Café Conti and by that time, I was rather intoxicated. He reassured me, after some absinthe at Café Mab, that I am worthy and that hell, no body in their right mind would want to pass me up.

              ¨You're just a two percenter,¨ he explained.

              ¨A what?¨

             ¨A two percenter. You're smart. You're cultivated. You don't play the  ' I'm-an-easy-lay-you-can-sleep-with-me-tonight' game. You don't give off that vibe, it's not who you are and you shouldn't, but it turns a lot of guys away who just want sex.¨

              ¨I see.¨ He basically summed up what I've known for a while: I am the kind of girl you take home to meet your mom and not necessarily the girl you have a one night stand with and then ditch.

              ¨Take X for example,¨ X was one of our mutual acquaintances. ¨X plays the 'silly, airy' type sometimes. People pick up on that.¨

               I smiled half-heartedly. My love life has always been difficult. The thought of me being compatible with only a mere TWO PERCENT of the straight male population depressed me. Nonetheless, the Diplomat claimed that if he was younger, much younger, ¨he'd be all over¨ me. I laughed. I hardly wanted to picture my adoptive uncle Diplomat like that, but it brought my spirits back up. We kicked back another absinthe-grape juice cocktail and then when home for the night.

              I decided then and there I wouldn't melancolicaly mourn Frenchy McWaiterboy's rejection. I'd get back out there, and fast....

              And that's when I asked E to drinks on Facebook.

              We all know what follows.

The Zoo Man

               On Friday before work, I made my way to the Jardin des Plantes to meet up with A, a 25 year old originally from Bordeaux who had spent significant amounts of time in Canada. He therefore spoke fluent English and loved to text me in anglais. I was running late and dashed onto metro line 10 and we met at the Gare d'Austerlitz. He had suggested we go to the zoo located in the garden, and always one to try new things, I was game.

                After bise'ing me hello, he promptly excused himself. He'd been out all night partying on a boat on the Seine, a peniche, was hungover, and had gone to bed at 6 am. It was one thirty in the afternoon when we met up. This is what every girl wants to hear first things first from a stranger she is meeting for the first time. I tried to be gracious and laughed with him about it. I told him equally, just o be fair, that it was currently 1:30 and I needed to leave for work by 4. His response ¨oh no big deal, I didn't even think we'd be here for that long.¨

                 LIKE wtf?

                Add to this the fact that the poor guy is out of work. I have nothing against guys who are out of work or on the job hunt. The market sucks right now. The crisis is tough. I dated E: The Original who is not currently working...he was working for a start-up but that ended poorly and so now he's job hunting and pursuing his photography and learning Chinese. He also outright owns his apartment in the 6th, has rental properties in Bordeaux, and I would wager is smart with his money. Bon. That aside, this one, A, had a legitimate reason to be a chomeur: he had a job in Canada, but the government refused to issue him a work visa, so he was forced to return to France, mostly against his will. I paid for my own zoo ticket, no big deal.

                 Then we started looking at animals. Depressed animals trapped in cages and clearly depressed about it. A could hardly start a conversation. I asked him about what he likes to do, his family, etc. Add to this the freaking animal cages just REEK.

                  Then let's add that we go outside and it starts POURING. We dash inside the monkey menagerie because it's covered. A laughingly jokes that we should go get coffee, but he doesn't want to make me spend more money. Backhanded thoughtfulness, anyone? I would've preferred to get coffee and would've paid for it too.

                   We go outside again. Again it starts pouring. We've been on this date for an HOUR when we head to the metro and I say goodbye. Thank JESUS. Lesson learned. NEVER EVER GO TO THE ZOO AT THE JARDIN DES PLANTES WITH A HUNGOVER, IMMATURE TWENTY FIVE YEAR OLD WHEN IT IS GRAY AND POURING RAIN.

                    Lesson. LEARNED.
  
                    This is horrible, but I was so glad for that date to be over.

                    Once I'm underground in the metro station, I look down at my cell phone. I've missed a call from E three minutes prior. I call him back once I'm sitting on the metro. He wants to know if I want to go to a movie with him at La Pagode.

                     I can't.

                     I have work.

                    

Bon Marché Boy

      One of the first men to message me on adopteunmec.com after Mr. Lyon was a gentleman I'll call Bon Marché Boy. Parisian born and bred, he's as slick as they come: when he contacted me he was at his countryhouse in Bretagne recovering from a boating accident that left a decent scar on his forehead. But he was eager and determined to meet me, told me he'd be back to Paris in three days, and wanted to arrange drinks toute de suite.  He's a blue eyed blonde hair French devil and not someone I admit I'd usually go for.

        We exchanged Facebook profiles and he started instant messaging me over the social networking site. He asked what I do ( I explained I'm a student, as is he...we're both in our last year of Master) and where I live ( near the Bon Marché department store in the 7th).  The Bon Marché is Paris' original and classic department store and it has become, since its founding in the 19th century, a chic as hell (read: beyond expensive) place to shop. Given its name, this is pure irony: ¨bon marché¨ in French means ¨good deal¨and the things you buy here are hardly a good deal. You can easily drop thousands upon hundreds of thousands of euro in a single go at this place. It is fitting the store is in the 7th on the rive gauche.

         The 7th is to Paris as the upper east side is to New York. The only reason I live there is because of my job as a nanny, because the family I work for currently is astronomically wealthy (let's just say my job is like The Devil Wears Prada gone nanny) and they like having me within three minutes walking distance and at their disposition. This admittedly makes dating somewhat difficult and is half the reason I decided to make a profile on adopteunmec.com: I don't have a lot of time to go out and meet people.

          Upon learning that I live near the Bon Marché, Bon Marché boy exclaimed ¨I LOVE THE BON MARCHÉ!¨ and ¨If you're my girlfriend I'll buy you gifts from there.¨

           I didn't know honestly how to take his proclamation, except that it made me feel slightly like a hooker. Did he think he could just BUY me like a pretty piece of jewelry? A few nights later we were chatting and he messaged me cockily and stated matter-of-factly in French ¨I'm your future lover, you know.¨  I will state here and now on the spot that my biggest turn off is COCKY ASSHOLES.

            I do NOT tolerate people who are full of themselves. There are few things I do not tolerate, but this is one of them,  and add to that list for good measure infidelity, lying and indecision. I can tolerate just about everything else.

             It may have been flirting, but who the hell was he to assume I'd like him? Followed by the somewhat blunt remark about buying me gifts, I was really discombobulated by this one.  I figured I'd still give him the benefit of the doubt.

             He let his guard down a bit and told me he'd just gotten out of a four year relationship with a Parisienne in July that had lasted from his 21st to his near 26th birthday. He said he had mourned the end and was ready to get out there again. His guard went down, my guard went up.  Men coming fresh off relationships always concern me: I don't like being a rebound.

             A few days later, Bon Marché Boy dropped the biggest bomb yet. The night before we'd scheduled our first meet up, he texted me this: ¨Do you think we could be sex friends?¨

              THIS, ladies and gentlemen, shocked the hell out of me. That he was thinking it? No. That he vocalized it to me? UH, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING BUDDY? I responded firmly that if that was the only reason he wanted to meet me then we should not meet at all. I told him that I am not someone who does not get attached and that poses huge problems for me and that I was being entirely honest about this.  He then freaked out and quickly tried to back pedal as fast as he could. I nearly wanted to cancel meeting him. I was truly no longer looking forward to meeting him, but again wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

               Add to this the fact that E called me that night to see how I was, had just finished another movie at the Chinese Film Festival at La Pagode and was in my neighborhood, and wanted to know what I was doing the next day. I agreed to lunch before date with Bon Marché Boy.

*  *  * 

                 Thursday. I do the girl thing and go shopping for a date outfit. BMB had asked what I would be wearing and emphasized that, as he was tall, I should wear heels. He texted me to let me know he was thinking of me and asked if I was dressed. ¨Yes,¨ I replied.  Unless you want me to come undressed, I thought. He probably wouldn't have been opposed. 

                  I grabbed lunch with E at an Italian place near his apartment dressed exactly head to toe in the outfit I'd told BMB the night before I'd be wearing: red pants, white t-shirt, long navy blue cardigan, black pumps. Red Dior lipstick as my signature. Perfume. Damn I felt sexy. I leaned against the doorway of E's apartment fully aware I was looking good when I went to meet him and felt smug at how I was probably torturing him, and on purpose too. He doesn't know I'm seeing other people, though I have half the mind to tell him just to make him jealous. 

                  Over thin crust pizza we got to chatting, and it's hard for me with him: I really do feel something with him, I don't know if he feels the same way, but I learn more about him every time, this time about his family: his mom and dad and sister and his nieces and nephews. It made me want to meet them. I probably never will. 

                   It was also a day where I JUST for the LIFE OF ME could not speak French. There are days when fluency is easy and I'm speaking perfectly and its beautiful, and then there are SHIT days when I cannot pronounce a goddam syllable and I have to wrestle for it. Every expat goes through this. Luckily E speaks English (with a strong accent haha) but understands perfectly what I say. When I speak French though, he has this habit of correcting me, and a very French habit it is, but it's good for me, and correcting one another has become a sport. 

                  ¨ENGLISH dammit¨ I blurted out. ¨I JUST want to speak English!¨ 

                   We parted was after--him to his movie and I to my date at 3. I got to Metro Duroc ten minutes before and then promptly got a text from BMB that he'd be there at 330 and was running late. I was not only dreading this date, I was now pissed. I thought he was inconsiderate. I went to a cafe to grab an espresso and starting working on editing a friend's writing--we've been exchanging work lately, and it's been productive for me as a writer. 

                   When BMB showed up finally, I was nervous, and he made me come to him across the intersection, which again I thought was pompous. He admitted he had been nervous to come after his text SNAFU the night before, but was glad to meet me. We walked to a nearby park by Invalides and got to chatting. 

                     He could tell I was uncomfortable by my smile, which is what I do when I don't know how to react--I just smile uncomfortably, but not everyone notices my discomfort. He did. Then he eased me into conversation and we had a legitimate good time. He's the third of three children and grown up in wealthy ass Paris his whole life. 

                     After an hour or so, it began to get chilly, so he asked me what I wanted to do. I had an hour and a half before I had to go work, so I followed him down some sidestreets. Then, he took me to the best bomb he has dropped yet:

                     There it was, his dark navy blue Vespa, parked. 

                     IT IS among every American girl's Parisian fantasy to be whisked around the city on a Vespa by a Frenchman. I have more than one friend with this fantasy. He whipped out an extra red helmet and put it on my head. He tightened the chin strap and I hopped onto the back of the scooter, perched on the back, arms clasped around him and praying my pump clad feet would brace me as we whizzed through the city. 

                      I had the TIME of my life! I was at first afraid of Parisian traffic and screamed ¨precious cargo!¨ but BMB didn't succeed in killing me. We did most of the rive gauche and crossed over to Bastile, zipped through the rue de Rivoli pas the Tuileries and the Louvre, and made our way back past the Eiffel Tower and past Invalides again, where our date had started a few hours previous, and cut past the Musée Rodin towards my place. 

                      There he left me, took back his helmet, bise'd me. Said he'd been pleased to meet me and that he'd see me soon. 

*  *  * 

                       I got  a text last night from BMB. Said he was ¨thinking of me,¨ and then stated that I was ¨beautiful, cultivated, and intelligent¨ and deserved more than a ¨sex friend.¨ I took this to mean he did not want to see me anymore and asked him if thats what he meant. He then played the ¨take pity on me I'm saying this to you to get you to feel sympathy for me so I can in your pants¨ card. He then asked: 

                       ¨So...when can I come see your place?¨

                       ¨On verra...bonne nuit.¨

                       What he doesn't know is that he will never see my place. 

                 

E: The Original

          I met E nearly a year ago at a mutual friend's birthday party at Alcazar, a chic restaurant located on rue Mazarine in the hip Saint-Germain-dès-Pres neighborhood. I had spent all day in class and thrown on a black cocktail dress and pumps and rushed my way to the resto as quickly as I could. This was followed by a delicious peach bellini that tasted like candy. Not a bad way to start an evening. 

           Our shamed amie is S, a lovely English woman of Pakistani origins with whom I run on weekends, and we were there with my best american friend in Paris, who also was in my Masters program, B. S and B and I were chatting and waiting for people to arrive when E showed up. 

            I remember few things about that evening, but I do remember E wearing a crisp white button down, jeans, and showing up with his black leather satchel. I remember him thinking I was French because six hours of lecture on abstract theory in a foreign language will do that for your accent and fluency. I remember chatting with him and hitting it off and then having S tell me he was in the midst of ending his relationship with his then GF, so I let it lay. 

            I friended him on Facebook afterward and left it at that. He invited me to his birthday party that December but I already had plans, so I didn't make it. Come February I suggested drinks, but our schedules were so hectic that we didn't end up meeting. 

*  *  * 

             At the end of May, I finished my Master 1 thesis and, very pleased by my grade ( an 18/20, which in the French system is like a 98 percent) posted a Facebook status about it. E commented, suggested we pop champagne, I suggested drinks, and nine months after we'd met, we scheduled a rendez-vous in the same neighborhood for early evening cocktails, or apéro. 

             Damn those Frenchies. 

            We got drinks, he showed me his amazing photography portfolio on his tablet computer, we walked around Paris in the pale but long lasting light of summer's eve, and he eventually walked me to the metro near midnight. He didn't kiss me goodbye, but bise'd me ( you know, the cheek kissing thing they do over here) and suggested I come to his place on Wednesday if I was interested in learning to salsa with him. 

             Wednesday, I went to his place. We danced, and at one point he needed me to give him my hand. ¨Or do I have to ask your dad for that?¨ he teased. ¨ You're not allowed to have my hand,¨ I laughed back. He made rum punch cocktails and dinner and we laughed and talked and I felt like he was someone I could truly fall for seriously. 

              I'm twenty four on the verge of twenty-five, and as the saying goes ¨I'm not that old but I'm not that young,¨.  I have had few serious relationships because I was mature enough to realize I was too immature to have them in college. And to be frank, college dating is a joke. It doesn't exist, at least not at my alma mater: all the guys are gay or taken. And then of those few left that are neither gay nor taken, you have to factor in the engineers who never see daylight and the frat boys every girl with half a brain knows to avoid. 

                But the tide is turning and I have a firm idea of what I need and what I want in someone long term, and it's scary that I'm at ¨that¨ moment in my life where should I find someone, I could settle down. The could is a frightening realm of unknown possibility hanging between want to and can. 

                E and I quickly became an item, but becoming an item in France is tricky, because the French do not have the Define The Relationship (DTR) talk we Americans do, they go off ¨feeling,¨ so it's not like I could come right out and ASK him what we were. I had to wait a while to assume we were together. Then we both took off for the summer, he for travel plans and I for work. 

                We kept in touch all summer, though admittedly being separated from him made me nervous. I expected him to pull an  ¨American boy,¨ and forget about  me as soon as I was out of site. On the contrary, he texted me mere minutes after my first flight of the summer landed to make sure I'd arrived safe. I was not only safe, I was smitten. I couldn't wait to get back to Paris to see him, and I thought about him everyday. 

                 Two months and a severe knee injury on his part later, I went to his apartment in the 6th near the Jardin du Luxembourg and he bise'd me austerely. I texted him after to tell him I had been glad to see him. I suggested a picnic that weekend, and he agreed. We talked for hours under sunlight and over bread and cheese. 

                  Then he dropped a bomb. 

                 He'd met someone six months earlier, she was older, had a kid, a significant other, and didn't even live in Europe. But he'd thought more about her all summer than me, had seen her once, would see her again, and he knew it wasn't fair to me. He had felt more passionately about her than me.  He wanted to just be friends.  All I could think was how typically French this was,  how stupid I had been to believe blindly in everything, and how disappointed I felt. 

                  E is 12 years my senior, been through a few relationships where he thought he'd found the one but it didn't work out. He never vocalized it, but I gather my youth and my lack of serious relationship experience scared him. But I prefer dating older, have mostly older friends, and am frankly sick and tired of immature 25 year olds.

                 I was sad but not crushed. I was sad because E is what I will now will consider my first could. Regardless of his nationality, I felt like he was someone who ¨got¨ me in a way: he's a smart as hell engineer with a lightning fast wit, an artistic side, an athlete. Someone I felt I had real long term potential with, felt and still feel completely at ease around, someone I will be friends with regardless.

                  Then came the je t'aime...moi non plus. Twelve hours after dropping this bomb on me, he texted to see how I was doing, wanted to know if I wanted to grab coffee. I told him I was sorry, but I had to work. He tried to grab coffee with me the day after that. I once again was occupied by errands.

                   As soon as I was no longer available and no longer interested, he seemed to pounce. I have seen him since--platonically--but he is the one doing the calling. I have, after being down and out about him, started seeing other people. I learned the hard way--after a seven year story near worthy of giving Carried Bradshaw and Mr. Big's epic saga a rumble--not to wait around for other people, not to be ok with being someone's second choice.

                  E made it clear to me I am and will be his second choice. He is one of those Frenchmen, and they are not a rare breed it seems to me, who are floating through life looking for something they cannot exactly put their finger on, something intangible. They are looking for something that doesn't exist, because what the problem with what they are looking for lies not outside of them, but within them.

                  E is looking for the woman of his dreams, the mother of his children. In France, a man marries a woman because he knows instinctively she will be the mother of his offspring, and for no other reason. E elaborated on this in reference to his last ex, D, who he knew could not be a mother to his kids. I know I will be a good mother when the time comes. I could be a mother right now (what with all this serious mommy training...I've been a hardcore nanny for going on three years now...that's another story) but I do not want to. But I will not be the mother of this man's children.

                 *  *  * 

                   I admitted to my boss, the mother of the two girls I look after, this week what had happened with E. I told her I don't play games and that I made him chose: it was either me or the other woman. She looked across me at the kitchen table and said, ¨ He might be testing you.¨

                    What with all his calling and wanting to see me despite the fact we're no longer together, I do not doubt he's testing me. We sat outside La Pagode, an asian cinema, on the rue Babylone a few afternoons ago. He mentioned that La Pagode was gift from a wealthy businessman to his wife, who then left her husband for his business partner. 

                     ¨ I could never do that,¨ I shook my head. 

                     ¨ How do you know? You've never been put in that position,¨ he replied. 

                     ¨ It's not my character. I am loyal to the death, in fact, sometimes, I am too loyal. I've been too loyal more than once in my life and it's hurt me.¨  

                      He does not know my father left my mother for someone else when I was six and they subsequently divorced. He does not know that I was so loyal to someone else I suffered for seven years waiting for them. He does not know that this type of loyalty is one of the biggest gifts I will ever be able to give to anyone. When I say I do, I will mean it. 

                       ¨You have never been in an on-again off-again relationship,¨ was his retort. 

                      No, no I haven't. I haven't because I believe that if something is on and off again, it's clearly not meant to be. I prefer clean breaks, smooth breaks. If there are problems early on, there will be huge problems the whole way through. 

                       He then muttered something I no longer remember about looking for the One, but it was calculated. Highly. Part of me wanted to scream ¨you idiot.¨ But I too am a calculator, and I never would've mentioned my loyalty were it not to hit him hard in the heart. 

                        Two can play at that game. 

                         Je t'aime...moi non plus. 

                   
       
           

The French Wine Baron

            Last year at the start of the school year, I went out the first weekend of October with my best american friend in Paris, B, who also happened to be in my Masters program at the Sorbonne. We'd met the previous year through our marathon training group and bonded over the fact we were both English teaching assistants for the government. She was my American wing woman, and on this particular night, we made our way to the cocktail bar Prescription located on rue Mazarine in the 6th. To say that I love the Saint-Germain-dès-Pres neighborhood of Paris is an understatement. It's also practically located between school and my studio and I adore traversing it's narrow, angled streets haphazardly and sipping coffee at a fabulous café named Conti....but I'll save my ode to the 6th for another time.

              When we entered, we stayed downstairs and wound our way to the bar when in the corner we spotted a bunch of Frenchmen chatting fervently in English. Anytime you spot Frenchmen speaking English in Paris the first think you think is: why? And the second is: engineering, business,  or marketing? because the man in question is sure to work in one of those domains.

               B eagle eyed two Frenchmen in a corner, one of which was wearing a blue button down.  She pointed him out to me. ¨ He's cute,¨ she muttered amongst the throbbing heartbeat of the music which pounded against the walls. Aloof, I turned my head for two seconds to look at him in the dim light, responded in the affirmative, thought to myself that he was too pretty for me and would never go for anyone like me, and proceeded to order a drink.

                B had brought with her a friend, A, who was dressed to the nines, and A had brought some of her American friends, so there we were, packed into a corner of a beautiful bar and eaves dropping on the Frenchies. Button down shirt man and his friend passed us to order drinks. They glanced at us, glanced away, and glanced back.

                  ¨ Bonsoir,¨ I said. The button down shirt man came over and introduced himself. His name was R, he and his buddies were there to celebrate the start of their Masters of Science in Wine Management at the Organisation International du Vin (OIV). I mentioned that I was American and from California. At this point, R exclaimed with excitement ¨I want to work in California!¨

                     BINGO.

                     We chatted non-stop the rest of the evening. He was from the south, a tiny wine making village near Avignon, and his family was comprised of wine makers on both sides, both mom and dad. He wanted to go do his Masters degree and then work in the states establishing his own import business, because as he explained ¨ the thing about French wineries is they are very small, so small in fact that they don't know how to export, but their wines are fantastic,¨ which was the case for his family.  I really liked this one.

                      Then he explained he was leaving for eleven months in one week to travel the globe: this wasn't any one Master, this was an eleven month intensive in the field, in your face, living out of two suitcases kind of Master: going to all the major wine production and consumption sites on the globe.  Dammit.

                      At two in the morning I figured, tired, I'd take my leave with B and A and leave. I thanked him for the evening and said goodbye. He offered to see us home, but we responded that it wasn't necessary, we were taking a taxi.  I grabbed my coat.

                       Just as I was about to exit the doorway, I felt him run up behind me. He had dashed from the back of the bar to me.  He handed me his business card.

                        ¨ Take this. Call me tomorrow. Come over and I'll teach you how to wine taste. You said you like dark chocolate and I have a wine from my village that will pair great with it. ¨

                        Shocked,  I took the card. Was this a fairy tale? Did this just happen to me? He kissed me goodbye on the cheek.

*  *  *

                         The next day I asked B if I should take up The French Wine Baron's offer. She encouraged me, so I shot him a tentative text: ¨ Hi R, this is Lindsay, the Californian you met last night. Let me know if you're still interested in having me over for a wine tasting.¨  He called me that afternoon, I bought a dark chocolate cake, and we met up near his place that evening.

                         I was nervous to see him again, afraid I'd imagined it all. He was as attractive as ever, good lord, when he met me at the metro. I met his roommates, we busted out wine, and he taught me how to swirl and sip while aerating the wine.

                          ¨It sounds like two teenagers making out in a high school hallway!¨ I blurted out after attempting, not very well, to oxygenate the wine while sucking air through my lips.

                          R and his roomies burst into laughter.  Discussion was going well. R suggested, since it was clear out, that we grab our coats and go for a walk. We made our way back to the metro.

*  *  * 

                           It has been nearly a year since this has happened, but I remember it like it were a movie I could watch: We took the metro to the Trocadéro across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower, and there watching the lights of the tower dance, he leaned in and kissed me.

                            I felt like I was in a fairy tale.

                           We perched on the edges of the Trocadéro ledge and talked, made our way eventually down to the river and crossed the bridge and under the Eiffel Tower. He stopped every few minutes to kiss me and tell me how beautiful I was.

                           ¨You probably know Paris better than I do, American girl,¨ he laughed. ¨I can joke that the American is showing me Paris.¨

                            We snaked our way to Invalides, where we chatted some more, and then he saw me home, but not before we busted out a Crémant de Bourgogne, a rosé, at which point he exclaimed ¨I could marry you RIGHT NOW.¨  I smiled.

                              I saw him a few more times that week: I made him a Mexican dinner at my place and he broke my pepper shaker. He felt so bad that the next time he brought me macarons from Dalloyau and hand fed them to me. He did the dishes after dinner and with a slight sadness in his eyes held me and said that if he was staying in Paris, he'd ¨keep me.¨ He jokingly invited me to the south for Christmas so he could ¨show off his American,¨ and I thought he was serious.

                               I didn't want him to leave.

                               The last time I saw him I wrote him a goodbye letter that I slipped into his backpack. I told him I didn't know if we would never see each other again, but I wished him nothing but happiness and good wishes for his journey ahead. I told him to think of me when he finally made it to Napa and that I was sure he'd like California.

                               I recommended he read Paulo Coehlo's The Alchemist. 

                               I listened to this and this for weeks on end, and it still reminds me of him.

                               I was fully prepared to never see him again.

*  *  * 

                                December 2011. I'm planning to go home to California. I hunt Paris high and low for the Rasteau Vin Doux Naturel he mad me try. I call the cave in his hometown, and their suppliers call me personally to tell me where to find it in Paris. I buy two bottles. I tell him I do this.

                               A few days before the end of the year, French Wine Baron tells me he is passing through Paris at New Year's and wants to see me. I can't. I'm on the other side of the globe.

  

                                My seven year shit show of a saga comes to a head while I'm home and I'm devastated. I come back to Paris and when I get off the plane, I feel like I'm home. A month later, I cut Mr. Saga out of my life for good.

                                 April 2012. French Wine Baron is again passing through Paris on his way to Germany for school. I won't be there due to work constraints.

                                 August 2012. French Wine Baron finds me on LinkedIn. We start chatting again. We e-mail back and forth. He invites me to the south for a week. At this point, I'm seeing E (see next post), don't know what we are, but don't want to mess anything up with E. I'm afraid to accepted the FWB's invitation because I don't know what will pass between us. I'm also not free with work. I decline.

                                September 2012. E ends it with me. FWB responds,  he doesn't know about E, I never said anything.  FWB understands my work constraints. He too is in a huge transition period. He's trying to find work in the States and I am going to be fighting in a year to stay here, in France. Over an email, I jokingly say we should get married. He shocks me again when he says:

                                ¨ Marriage...maybe one day, that's super serious, I'll have to think about it...but I wouldn't be against a PACS!¨ A PACS is France's civil union, and anyone French can PACS anyone of their choice. It is o small deal, however, because it ensures foreigners visas. The catch is that one must cohabitate with their Significant Other and officers regularly come check to verify you do live together.  A PACS for me would be something I would consider with someone if I thought they were The One but not quite ready for marriage...a test drive, if you will.

                                 The FWB scared the living day lights out of me when he mentioned this! HE IS STRAIGHT UP WILLING TO PACS ME!!? WTF!

                                 None the less, he mentioned he'd be in Paris again the weekend of the 29th. We'll see each other again. Nearly a year after parting for what I thought was forever. After I felt my heart buckle a bit under the weight of ¨what could have been,¨ and I had to say goodbye.

                                  He still wants me to come to the south to show me his pays. A pays means ¨country,¨ but for the French can specifically mean the region of the country where they're from, where they're grown. France is not a uniform place, but a massive, beautiful patchwork of regions boasting unique cuisine, history, and traditions. Accents even. FWB has this gorgeous, nasally southern drawl inflected with hints of Spanish rhythm and intonation.

                                   I have gathered FWB wants to show me his pays because he's proud of it: it's where he, and his grapes, and his wine, are from. To want to show this to me is a huge compliment. It's also adorable.

                                  I mentioned I'd be free the following weekend. He mentioned gleefully that ¨hey, he too!¨ would be free and I could TOTALLY come to the south if I wanted. We'll see.

                                  All I know for now is OH JESUS I am going to see you again and I am so excited and so scared and want to live in the moment but i'm afraid of having to say goodbye to you again because DAMMIT I really liked you the first time and am afraid I will the next just as much if not more.

                                 Am I living a fairy tale?