While we were headed up the rue Monge, I started chatting with one of the PhD geologists I'll call the Rocket Scientist. I'm a friendly person who can hold a conversation, so this didn't bother me. When he figured out I was American, and not French, he was pleasantly surprised. We ended up being on the same team for beer pong in the pub and that was when he invited me to hang out later that week, on Saturday. I naively agreed.
* * *
The Saturday morning of the exact Saturday I'd agreed to hang out with the Rocket Scientist, I saw our mutual friend, R. And then, after chatting with her, it occurred to me that Rocket Scientist considered this thing a date and I thought it was strictly platonic.
Oh shit.
I suddenly felt a pit in my stomach. I really didn't want to go meet up with Rocket Scientist anymore, but I wasn't going to be rude and cancel last minute, and the least I could do was give him a shot. So I did.
* * *
We met up at Odéon and then what ensued was a long as hell marathon date. What is it with these Frenchies and never-ending-first-dates? We walked around a lot, and I got to know more about him. From Nantes. Oldest of four children. Studying planetary geology. A few years older than I am. Working and researching for the French equivalent of NASA.
Slightly overbearing and trying to grab my air and the small of my back and mentioned, on the first date, wanting to take me to Nantes and make me try Kouign-amman. Speaking of which, what is it with these Frenchies and wanting to whisk you off to their little hometowns!?
We went from the Jardin de Luxembourg to the fifth where we grabbed coffee. He then asked me a pertinent question that caused me to panic:
¨ Do you think one day you'll end up a dual citizen?¨
As I was only 7 months in to this now going on 30 month journey, the thought of leaving my country and becoming a dual citizen hadn't really occurred to me, so I panicked and told him no, that I needed to go back to the States for my PhD. Oh how time changes everything. She is a cruel, cruel mistress.
After coffee we wandered some more, then eventually grabbed dinner. Oh lord, marathon dates with these Frenchmen, I warn you, they last all day! It's like they get you in their presence and are terrified to release you! I liked Rocket Scientist as a person but felt like I had absolutely no chemistry with him, which was a shame because we were both very intellectual and curious and if I had been attracted to him, we would probably be fairly compatible. But I can't fake chemistry.
He saw me to the métro later that night, and our goodbye was admittedly awkward. I know enough now to know that most well raised Frenchies will not try and kiss you on the first date, but I was terrified he would try and I didn't want to reject him. If there is anything I hate more, it is rejecting people. I don't like hurting feelings.
* * *
I heard from Rocket Scientist on Facebook later that week. I nearly vomited when he, at my impending departure, let out this phrase:
¨ I'll be thinking of you while you're thirty thousand feet above the Atlantic.¨
I'm a hardcore romantic, a Charlotte York to the core, but even that was grossly too saccharine for my liking. I repressed the urge to up-chuck.
* * *
Every now and then, over the past two years, Rocket Scientist will chat me on Facebook. I'm friendly and far to busy to ever see him, so I keep it strictly platonic. Though lately he's been trying to hang out again. Texted me this past fall while I was on vacation duty in the countryside wanting to know if I wanted to go to a concert. Had to decline. Invited me out to his apartment for barbecque this summer with his buddies, as they are all PhD nerds.
¨You know, kind of like the Big Bang Theory,¨ he referenced the television show. I asked him how his research was going. I can't really tell you much about it except that it involves lasers and the planet Mars.
¨Good,¨ he said, ¨slow but steady.¨ He again invited me out to his place. I said that sounded fun if I eventually had the time. He messaged me this past week wanting to know if I was free, I said I did't know with nannying yet, but to text me.
Part of me is curious to see if things could've changed over the past two years and if maybe I could click with him now the way I didn't two years ago, and the other part of me is terrified I still won't click with him and then I'll be a bitch who has to turn him down a second time, and I really don't want to do that. He is a great person, but I'm just not sure there is, or ever will be, anything more than platonic there for me.
No one ever tells you that there is a space-time continuum to dating and attraction, because you can fully be head over heels in love with someone at one point in your life and ten years later, never want to go near them again. It's what complicates this romance thing: not only do you have to click and be attracted to one another, somehow in the insane chronology that is life and fate, both your space-time continuums must somehow line up.
And that is no small feat.
I don't know that I am ready to plunge right back in to dating and quite frankly, I don't have the time right now with two jobs, two potential jobs with visas, a Masters thesis, and somehow surviving to June. I do not know if I should give this (WOA HOLY HELL) persistent guy another chance, because it's pretty insane that after not seeing him for two years and only going on one date with him, he still seems to want to see me.
My heart is still a little bit bruised and while I'm not wallowing I'm not apt to putting the energy into dating right now that it demands. I don't know.
On verra...
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