Dating tales of Paris

Here I am, a single girl in Paris, the city of love, romance and lights. Yet I have found no such thing after MONTHS of bad dating.

Seriously, months of it! What's a girl gotta do to get some romance around here?

This is part one of multiple posts, and you will soon see the purpose of it all.

So let me tell you all about my French men experience. Of course I expected love to be different in Paris, but in all the best ways! Sultry men, smoking their cigarettes, whispering sweet French nothings in my ear working all their god-given French charm.

Reality, as always, was a mile away.

Firstly, can someone explain to me how to get hot men to speak to you?! And then how to keep them in line after?

This was a learning lesson for me in that French dating varied a lot from Anglo-Saxon dating. The biggest rule being that once you had gone on a few dates and kissed you were pretty much boyfriend and girlfriend.

In a strange way I liked that. None of the dating multiple people confusion, straight to the point, no games.

However what I found was that the French like space. They don't have to be together all the time, in fact seeing each other once or twice a week is sufficient, even at the very beginning love infatuated stages.

What happened to romance?
The need and utmost desire to see someone as much as you could! Riding the last metro at 1 in the morning to go for a midnight walk with your lover?

Is romance dead in Paris?

Or just in my life?

More to come....

Moving to a different country

It has been over three months since I have packed my bags, decided to called it a day, and move to Paris. Firstly let me explain in an non self-righteous way why this was kind of a big fucking deal.

Although I had lived in the Netherlands for the previous six months on a study abroad programme, this was different. I was going to this country where people only 34% of the population can speak English well, and I could speak French well enough to know the basic phrases. I was in a solid merde situation.

As soon as I got there I knew that my French would not cut it. I could ask for directions but was that really a question that would come in handy when trying to make friends?

Anyway everywhere around me was a mass of French conversation, not a word of which I could fucking understand. Do you see my frustration now? 

A 20 year old, with a suitcase of stuff, a wage that only really covered the price of rent in Paris, and not a single friend in Paris. It was scary. Moving to a different country is always scary, but more so when it's fabulous Paris, a place I had only dreamt of but never thought I could move to.

With it's well dressed women, and even better dressed men. The place where I would be comparable to a ragamuffin. 

(All the French be like what is she even doing here)

Even after three months the pangs of fear come and go about how I am not nearly as good at French as I aimed to be, or how I have nothing chic to wear. But like I said it comes and goes. Because I have made Paris my home for now which means less regular posts, and more regular shopping trips. 

Any city can become your home if you spend enough time embracing it and finding all the little quirks.

More on my adventures coming soon. 

Big news

It has been WAY too long since the last French post so watch this space because there will be a post on French words trés trés soon. 

I do not know if I have mentioned this before but I'm MOVING TO PARIS!

It was so last minute, only confirmed last month but paperwork is still dragging along. I am now taking a year out of university, and working in Paris for the next year starting from September. I decided that learning French in a classroom was too slow of a way to learn French for me, so I signed up for a scheme  (http://www.britishcouncil.org/language-assistants) where you can teach English in France.

After a taste of living abroad on my ERASMUS in the Netherlands I decided I hadn't quite gotten enough. I am super nervous, because I don't know anyone in Paris, my French is extremely poor right now Paris is hella expensive and I haven't even found anywhere to live yet! But life is an adventure and each new big experience that puts me out of my comfort zone is almost an adrenalin rush for me. 

Here's to making it through 9 months in Paris. 

How not to lose your virginity

1) With a stranger

No, no! Don't do it! Trust me from experience, it's not fun, it's not pretty the next morning, and it's never a good story to tell your future boyfriend when he questions how you lost your v card. 

As corny as it sounds, wouldn't you rather have sex with someone you're comfortable?

2) With some douchebag/play/BNOC (big name on campus)

You will expect great sex but it will be mediocre at best. He does not care about you, he merely wants to add to his sex-count, and he will probably have no idea what he is doing. Because BNOC's generally have no problem getting laid, therefore it is not about pleasing you, it is about pleasing him.

3) Drunk

When you feel dizzy and slightly nauseous, it's not the best idea to lose your virginity. Being sick on someone during intercourse sure is memorable but not in all the right ways. Not remembering who the guy was that you lost your virginity to isn't a great idea either. 

4) With the LAD

Or more specifically, someone so very keen to be a lad, and tries awfully hard to be one as well. You will notice this specimen through the following traits: a desire to prove their masculinity to other males, a vague smell of insecurity in their manhood, and of course the constant repetition of the word, lad.

"Terry is such a lad cause he downed that pint."
"Ben slept with that slut from last night, what a lad!"
"I can't believe you flipped her off mate, you're such a lad."

Unless of course this is your type of guy.

To each their own. Chacun à son goût.

Leaving

My life has taken some pretty alarming turns since I last posted on this blog. If I remember correctly, I was mopey over a relationship that clearly wasn't meant to be but oh wow have things changed. I finally got the guy who I've been pining after since October (since the first time I met him, how cheesy), a guy who treats me so well, who's lovely and better than anything I could have imagined, and what timing too. About a month after we got together it turned out I had to leave because I was doing a semester abroad. I rarely fall for many men as hard as I've fallen for Pug (let's call The Boy that shall we?), which made leaving so much harder.

We've agreed to carry things on while I'm in the Netherlands studying at the University of Maastricht but boy does it suck.

I won't lie to you, I hated leaving. I didn't think I would be as emotional or regretful but I was a mess on the last day. Tears, hating every second of saying goodbye, more tears, lots of awkward silences as I'm not the best person when it comes to saying the right thing. God I loathed it. It seemed more like a final goodbye because the chances were, after this semester I might go on a placement year and my best friends will have graduated by then. As will have Pug, who is currently in his final year.

I don't dare to think how much I'll hate to say goodbye to my mother who might not be able to come and see me off.

I suppose goodbyes are always hard when you know that there's a possibility that you will never return to that same place in your life again. My heart breaks as I think of all the nights I will never spend getting beers in a pub with the friends I once made, or never spending another evening lazing around in someone's room, talking about all the people we hate and how unfair life is. As Hugh Laurie once said:

“It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”"

Maybe this is true. I know I've never been one to worry about being ready before, I tend to go with the flow but once you have something that is worth staying for, I suppose being ready is required. 

How to get over someone

Hey there broken-hearted babes,

Well, I kind of assume that it'd mostly be those who have just gotten out of a relationship reading this because truth be told it was what I spent hours googling the day after I ended things with a guy. On a side-note, how very odd that in this generation we turn to the internet for advice about nearly everything?

Even though in my heart of hearts I knew it was for the best that things stopped, I still found it a little hard to not call him and tell him I changed my mind and wanted him back.

Maybe my situation is a little different and complicated but I still thought I'd write something to help if I can.

Here's the scoop, you might not stop wanting to get back together for a while but give it time and you'll realize that everyday you want him/her less. You've just got to convince yourself how this was the right decision! Things ended for a reason and if you go back there things will be different. You probably will never be able to go back to how you were before and that's a fact.

Only time heals all wounds. Maybe not physically but mentally.

 Do not under any circumstances follow the saying that to get over somebody you need to get under somebody else because you'll know when you're ready! Right now all you want to do is talk about how things went wrong and you just want someone to tell you that things will be alright. Do not mistake this need for a need for a new boy/girl.

That's about all I can think of at the moment.

Remember: stay strong, don't go back there unless you really think it can work out! There'll be other men/women, but until then you've got a cornershop that sells ice cream nearby haven't you?

The Problems of being Painstakingly Average

So you're painstakingly average too? Oh boy doesn't it suck. Not being the funny one, or the pretty one, or even the clever one. Life really isn't going in our favour is it?

Well at least not how you expected it to turn out. Because you always do think that things will be better as you grow older. You'll be beautiful, like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly but two years have passed and you're still the same person, wishing you'd be better.

Maybe that's just life. You get those who will always be the butterflies among us petty little caterpillars. Sucks doesn't it? I mean there's nothing you can really do to make yourself funnier, it just happens. And unless you have an extortionate amount of money I doubt you can really make yourself beautiful. 

That's about all I wanted to say really. How much it sucks to be average.