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