Being 31, Burned Out and Single: Could a Series of Meetings with Men from France Bring Back My Zest for Life?
“Tu es où?” I typed, glancing out the balcony to check if he was close. I inspected my lipstick in the mirror over the hearth. Then worried whether my elementary French was off-putting.
“On my way,” he texted. And before I could doubt about inviting a strange man to my apartment for a initial meeting in a foreign country, Thomas knocked. Soon after we shared la bise and he shed his winter attire, I discovered he was even more attractive than his Tinder photos, with tousled blonde locks and a hint of ultra-defined abs. While getting wine as insouciantly as I could, mentally I was screaming: “The plan is working!”
I had hatched it in late 2018, exhausted from close to ten years of living in New York. I worked full-time as an editor and writing my novel at night and on weekends for three years. I pressured myself so hard that my agenda was planned in my diary in 10-minute increments. On Friday evenings, I came home and carried an cloth tote of soiled garments to the self-service laundry. After returning it up the multiple staircases, I’d yet again view the writing project that I knew, probably, may never get published. Meanwhile, my contemporaries were climbing the corporate ladder, getting married and purchasing stylish apartments with modern conveniences. Turning 31, I felt I had little to display.
NYC gentlemen – or at least the ones I dated – seemed to think that, if they were above average height and in corporate sectors, they were highly superior.
I was also largely single: not only because of hectic schedule, but because my ex and I kept seeing each other once a week for dinner and Netflix. My ex was the initial man who talked to me the debut outing I ventured out after arriving in the city, when I was 22. Although we broke up after several years, he re-entered my life a casual meal at a time until we always found ourselves on the far sides of his couch, reacting in sync at Game of Thrones. As soothing as that routine was, I didn’t want to be intimate companions with my ex while having a celibate life for the years to come.
The few times I tried out Tinder only diminished my assurance further. Romance had changed since I was last in the dating world, in the dinosaur era when people actually talked to one another in bars. New York men – or at least the ones I dated – seemed to think that, if they were above average height and in finance or law, they were top-tier. There was no attempt, let alone courtship and romance. I wasn’t the only one feeling offended, because my friends and I shared detailed notes, and it was as if all the unattached individuals in the city were in a contest to see who could care less. Something needed to change, significantly.
One day, I was organising my shelves when an vintage art book made me pause. The front of an academic text shows a closeup of a historical illustration in gold and lapis lazuli. It revived my hours invested in the reading room, studying the illustrated pages of sacred objects and analyzing the famous artworks in the Parisian museum; when a book aiming to outline “art’s origins” and its evolution through our past felt significant and valuable. All those serious discussions and aspirations my peers and I had about aesthetics and reality. My I was moved.
I resolved at that moment that I would quit my job, depart the city, place my items at my parents’ house in Portland, Oregon, and reside in France for a quarter. Of course, a notable group of authors have absconded from the United States to Europe over the generations – famous authors, not to mention countless minor bards; perhaps following in their footsteps could help me become a “real writer”. I’d stay a month apiece in multiple urban centers (Grenoble for the mountains, a coastal spot, and Paris for Paris), improve my language skills and view the masterpieces that I’d only researched from afar. I would trek in the mountains and enjoy the ocean. And if this led me to encounter handsome locals, all the better! Surely, there’d be no superior solution to my fatigue (and inactive period) than heading off on an adventure to a land that has a patent on kissing.
These fantastical ideas drew only a subdued response from my friends. They say you aren’t a New Yorker until you’ve lived there for 10 years, and close to that point, my exhausted cohort had already been moving away for enhanced living conditions in Budapest, Amsterdam, California. They did desire for me a fast rejuvenation from Manhattan courtship with sexy French men; they’d all dated one or two, and the common view was that “French men” in New York were “odder” than those in their homeland but “attractive” compared with other choices. I avoided that topic of the conversation with my parents. Frequently concerned about my 80-hour weeks and frequent illnesses, they welcomed my choice to emphasize my mental and physical health. And that was what most excited me: I was pleased that I could manage to look after myself. To regain zest for life and understand where my life was headed, career-wise and individually, was the objective.
The initial evening with Thomas went so as expected that I thought I blew it – that he’d never want to meet again. But before our clothes came off, we’d laid out a guide and talked about hiking, and he’d vowed to take me on a trek. The next day, familiar with frustration by fickle American men, I wrote to Thomas. Was he really going to show me his preferred path?
“Yes, don’t worry,” he texted back within seconds.
My date was far more affectionate than I’d expected. He grasped my fingers, admired my style, prepared a meal.
He was as good as his word. A shortly thereafter, we traveled to a starting point in the Chartreuse mountains. After hiking the white path in the night, the town lay shimmering beneath our feet. I made an effort to live up to the passion of the scene, but I couldn’t banter in French, let alone