Sleeping with Paris

by Juliette Sobanet

  I couldn’t call though. It would seem desperate, and if he wanted to get in touch with me, he could always email me. After all, he had been spending a lot of time on the Internet these days. Just the thought of that website with his picture on it made me sick to my stomach. Or was it the five glasses of red wine from the night before?

  To avoid making any more desperate, drunken moves, I fished out my laptop and signed onto my blog. I had a few hits on it already, but was hoping to build this up to epic proportions. I had to reach as many women as possible. It was time to stop this smart-women-falling-for-cheaters phenomenon. I wracked my brain for a catchy title, and began typing my second post.

  Sleeping with Paris

  A Girl’s Guide to Dating like a Man in the City of Love

  by an Américaine in Paris

  Two days after finding out that my fiancé has been cheating on me through an online dating site, I sit here wondering how I got here. How did it come to this? If you’re a woman, you’ve probably had this exact experience. Okay, maybe you didn’t discover your fiancé’s online dating profile two days before you were supposed to move to Paris together, and have an online chat with the girl who he just slept with, but you’ve most likely found out one way or another that a man you loved has cheated on you with another woman. And you’re sick of it. You’re tired of the games. You want the next man who walks through your front door to be Mr. Right so you don’t have to keep putting yourself through all of this misery. So you keep on plugging away, hoping and dreaming that someday, somehow, there will be a man out there who loves you enough not to cheat on you.

  Well ladies, I’m here to tell you that it’s all one big crapshoot and we’ve been on the wrong end of the shoot. It’s time to turn the tables and take control of our lives.

  Goodbye Charlotte York. Hello Samantha Jones.

  If you’ve had enough and want to start having some fun, here are a few key rules:

  Rule # 1 – Cut ties with all cheating, desperate exes (switch continents if necessary) and find a rebound. Rebounds are key to getting over the dreaded ex.

  Would your ex be sitting around, eating chocolate and wondering what went wrong? No, he’d be out there finding his next victim. So, get your butt out of that cozy recliner, put down your self-help book, call your girlfriends and hit the town.

  Rule # 2 – It’s okay to make a fool out of yourself in front of a new guy since you don’t care anymore if he calls you the next day. Remember, you’re dating like a man here. Don’t call. Don’t expect a call. Avoid disappointment.

  Case in point: Do I care that I pummeled straight into a hot, half-naked guy in the communal shower in my dorm, only to then spend the night out with him and his friends, get way too drunk, cry to him on the way home about my cheating fiancé, and then proceed to make out with him in my bedroom only minutes later? No, I don’t. Because I don’t need him to call me tomorrow or the next day, or the day after that. The old me would’ve been mortified, but really, who cares? I may never see this guy again.

  So, go all out. And if you end up making a mockery of yourself, at least have fun doing it. Because, and repeat after me: “It doesn’t matter if he calls me tomorrow, and actually, I’d prefer if he didn’t so I can go out and keep having fun.”

  Rule # 3 – All guys are sketchy, so don’t get worked up about his other girlfriends or weird phone calls. Just use him for a kiss . . . or more . . . and call it a night.

  Case in Point: While out with Half-Naked French Hottie tonight, he bolted from the table to answer a mysterious phone call, then mentioned nothing about it when he came back.

  It could be completely innocent. Or not.

  He may have a girlfriend. He may have a wife. He may have several of them. But, in the end, none of that matters when you are out to whoop it up and have a good time. Let the man screw up his life however he wishes, because you’re out there to date like a man. And that means no overanalyzing and no caring if the dude you happen to be out with seems to have other priorities. Guys are sketchy, and that’s all the more reason not to fall in love with one.

  Rule # 4 – And finally, if you do switch continents as suggested in Rule # 1 above, you may find yourself feeling scared and utterly alone, which, in turn, may make you want to call your ex. After all, you did have a lot of wonderful times together. And despite how badly he hurt you, you may still love him so much you can actually feel your heart breaking without him.

  Stay strong though, ladies, and don’t make that call. Remember that millions of other women have been in your shoes, and they’ve gotten through it, so you will too.

  Six

  vendredi, le premier octobre

  French men aren’t like American men—they still like us after we cry.

  I rolled over in my bed and pried my eyes open. The red lights on my alarm clock were flashing noon.

  Noon! I’d missed my appointment. Shit, shit, shit.

  After I’d hung up with Katie, I’d set my alarm for six-thirty a.m., but I didn’t even remember hearing it go off. I checked the stupid clock to see if it had malfunctioned. No, the alarm was still set for six-thirty. In my half-drunken state, I must’ve turned it off. I had no recollection of doing that though. I never, ever missed appointments. What in the hell was going on with me?

  I jumped out of bed and fumbled through my unpacked suitcases to find my acceptance letter—the only piece of paper that had any sort of contact number on it. I dialed and got through to a program assistant who gave me Madame Rousseau’s number.

  As her phone was ringing, I thought about telling her that my plane had been delayed, or that I’d been hit by a car, or anything so that this woman still liked me. I needed her to help me get a job in Paris after this year was over, and I definitely wasn’t starting off on the right foot.

  “Allô?” she answered.

  “Bonjour, Madame Rousseau? C’est Charlotte Summers—”

  I couldn’t even get another word out because she stopped me short and let me know that she was not happy, not by any stretch of the imagination. She didn’t even give me a chance to make up a fake excuse. After rambling on in French about how she hated when students wasted her time, and about how rude and unprofessional my behavior was, she did at least set up another appointment with me for the following Tuesday at the same time. She made sure to tell me that I better be early.

  This was the woman I’d be relying on to help me find a teaching job in Paris?

  I got out my planner and made a note to leave two hours early for the appointment. Wasting Madame Rousseau’s time was not something I would ever do again, not after that phone call.

  After an entire day of mentally berating myself for being such an idiot, I finally gave up on the self-loathing and went back to bed.

  ***

  Going through a break-up is hard enough, but trying to muddle through it in a foreign city where I didn’t have any of my closest friends nearby to distract me was proving to be more trying than I had thought it would be.

  It was my fifth morning in Paris, and, as I glanced at the clock and saw that it was already noon, I realized I still had not even begun to adjust to the time change. The last few days had been a blur of staying up late at night, sleeping for a few hours, waking up again, calling home, and then sleeping again for half the day. I was hoping that by today or this weekend at the very least, I would be able to sleep through the night and wake up at a decent hour.

  I rolled over in my bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. The truth was that besides being a physical wreck, I also felt sadder than I could ever remember feeling in my entire life. I missed Jeff so much I could hardly breathe sometimes. Mostly, I missed waking up with him in the mornings. Whenever the alarm went off, he would wrap his strong arms around me and bundle me up into his chest so that I never wanted to get out of bed.

  But, as I lay painfully alone in my bed that morning, the thought that I would never again wake to see Jeff’s face next to mine on the pillow was devastating.
What was crushing me even more though was the thought that he had so carelessly thrown our love away to have sex with another girl. And that she was the one who probably saw his face every morning now.

  As I envisioned the two of them waking up in bed together, I squeezed my eyes closed and willed myself to fall back asleep. What was the point of getting out of bed anyway? I didn’t have any friends to hang out with, and I’d already screwed things up with the only guy I’d met since I arrived.

  Luc hadn’t stopped by at all after “the incident.” While I was relieved I hadn’t run into him in the hallway in my no-make up, baggy pajamas get-up, the fact that he hadn’t wanted to see me made me feel even worse than I already felt.

  Like Katie had said though, I needed to deal with my broken engagement before jumping into another dramatic guy situation.

  But his body was so nice. And his kisses were . . . well, not that I could remember all that well, but I thought they were pretty nice too.

  Shaking away the memory of Luc’s soft lips on mine, I forced myself up to a sitting position, climbed out of bed, and sat down at my computer. Just as I was logging into my blog to gather strength from my own advice, my phone rang.

  A jolt of hope coursed through me as Lexi’s name appeared on the screen. A friend!

  “Hey, Charlotte,” she said. “Just wanted to see if you’re up for a girls’ night out on the town tonight?”

  I peered around my room at the mess of unpacked suitcases, my clothes strewn over top of them, the empty box of tissues at my bedside, and my unmade bed.

  “I would love to,” I told her as I smiled for the first time in three days.

  “So, did anything good happen with Luc after you guys left the other night?” she asked.

  I filled Lexi in on my disastrous evening, then spilled the whole story about Jeff and why I’d moved to Paris alone.

  “Girl, you really need to get out and get your mind off that no good son of a bitch,” Lexi said after I’d explained my new-found disgust with online dating sites. “I have just the place for you.”

  I loved Lexi already. “I can’t wait,” I told her.

  We worked out the details before she told me she had to run to get her hair done. I wondered then if Lexi had a job or any other real-life responsibilities. She hadn’t mentioned them to me if she did. It seemed as if she frolicked around Paris by day, then hit the town each night. I hoped I’d be able to join in on her fun and live such a care-free life during my year here.

  After talking with Lexi, I felt something I hadn’t even remotely experienced in the past week—hope. I had made a new friend, I would make more friends, I would meet more guys, and things would get better. I decided to get my act together and stop sleeping all the time. Granted, I had only been living in my pajamas and littering tissues around my mess of a room for four days, and I was certainly entitled to at least a few weeks of moping, but it had never been like me to sit around and feel sorry for myself. It was time to get up off my butt and get moving.

  I spent the afternoon cleaning, unpacking and organizing my room. I turned on some angry girl music, sang my heart out, danced around my room and got things together. No more tears, no more wallowing in self pity.

  In the midst of my cleaning frenzy, while I was bellowing out a high note, there was a knock on the door. I was so excited at the thought of a potential visitor that I ran to the door and swung it open with a huge smile on my face, forgetting that I was wearing a skimpy white tank top and inappropriately short shorts, not to mention that I was sporting a cheerleader-style high pony tail and sweating from head to toe.

  It was Luc.

  He smiled his gorgeous smile and leaned in to give me a kiss on the cheek. Wow, in my drunken stupor, I must not have remembered how incredibly adorable he was.

  “Hi Luc,” I greeted him in my cheeriest tone. I couldn’t believe he was here. I wanted to make sure there were no traces of the damaged girl he’d taken care of a few nights before.

  “Bonjour Charlotte. You are feeling better?”

  “Yes, much better. I’m so sorry about the other night. I had such a great time with you and your friends, and you were so sweet to take care of me like you did.”

  “Pas de problème. I am glad you are feeling better. I was wondering if you would like to come over for dinner this week. I am a very good . . . euh . . . how do you say . . . in the kitchen?”

  “Cook? You’re a good cook?”

  “Yes, cook! I am a very good cook. You will let me cook for you?”

  “Sure, that would be wonderful,” I said, as a memory of the last time Jeff had tried to cook for me flashed through my mind. I had walked into his apartment to find him wafting clouds of smoke out of the kitchen with an exasperated look on his face. Jeff was usually good at anything he set his mind to, but in the kitchen, he’d always been a complete disaster. I’d given him a hug before we both broke into uncontrollable laughter and Jeff reached for the phone to order us a pizza.

  How could we have gone from so happy, so in love . . . to this?

  “Tomorrow night at seven is good?” Luc’s voice snapped me back to reality.

  “Um, yeah, that sounds great.”

  “Okay, I see you then.” And with two more bisous, my charming French neighbor was off. And while I should’ve been elated that this sweet, handsome guy actually wanted to spend more time with me, instead I felt empty and wondered if I would ever feel truly happy again. Luc was great, but there was only one man I wanted, and that man had broken my heart.

  I logged back into my blog to take my mind off of Jeff. I had several more hits than last time, which gave me hope. How horrible that so many women were probably going through exactly what I was feeling right at that moment. I sent another mass email to my girlfriends to remind them to check out my blog and to forward it along to women everywhere.

  As a follow up to my last post, I have a few new lessons to share:

  Rule # 1 - French men could care less if you make a fool out of yourself. Crying, desperate American women don’t scare them one bit. So, ladies, if you’re sick of being called “crazy” and “too emotional” by all of those American men, pack it up and move to France.

  Case in Point: Half-Naked French Hottie just showed up at my door, only a couple of days after the drunken crying incident, to ask me over for dinner at his place later this week. Which brings me to my next lesson:

  Rule # 2 – Do allow men to take you out on dates, cook for you, and dote on you. This is where we, women have the upper hand. Why spend our own, hard-earned cash when we could let the man pay for it? I say, make them pay! Because why the hell not?

  Rule # 3 – Remember that when you are fresh out of a break-up, you will probably still think about your ex. A lot. I don’t have a fool-proof remedy for making all of your memories of him disappear, but if you are charging ahead without him, making a life for yourself and meeting new people, those heart-ripping thoughts should, over time, become fewer and far between.

  And, if all else fails, have a glass of wine (or two), call one of your girlfriends, and remember that he is the one who’s missing out on the fabulous woman that you are.

  ***

  Later that night, I headed out on my own to meet Lexi at Le Violin Dingue, a bar in the Latin Quarter. She told me that it had a good mix of Anglos and French guys and that the dance floor was wild. It sounded perfect—I was more than ready for a crazy night out on the town.

  As I left the Fondation des États-Unis, I joined the large groups of international students herding down the sidewalk toward the RER station. Ahead of me, three bubbly, young girls spoke Italian and two skinny French guys, clad in tight jeans and white tennis shoes, eyed them up. I smiled to myself. Everyone here was so different from the polo-sporting, collar-popping, preppy kids back in Georgetown. It was refreshing.

  We waited at the crosswalk while the spiffy new tramway that ran down boulevard Jourdan stopped and picked up a load of students. I crossed the street behind th
e Italian girls, admiring their long, silky black hair and the way they looked so confident, all dressed in their tight skirts and low-cut tops, excited for a wild night of study abroad debauchery.

  As I climbed into the red, white and blue RER train that smelled of car exhaust and body odor, I squeezed into a free pocket of space and steadied myself against the metal railing until the bumpy train came to the Luxembourg stop.

  On my way up the stairs, I breathed in the humid night air as I filed past the same two tight jeans guys, who were now laughing like hyenas and shoving each other around.

  “Mademoiselle!” I heard one of the boys shout in my direction.

  I swiveled my head around to find them both staring at me with goofy grins.

  “Comme vous êtes sexy. Vous voulez coucher chez moi ce soir?”

  I took one last glimpse of their excruciatingly tight pants, and instead of giving in to my urge to laugh, I shot them a look of disgust before making a beeline in the other direction.

  To give DC some credit, the preppy, collar-popping boys back in Georgetown did not stop random girls in the street to tell them how sexy they were and ask them to spend the night.

  I forgot all about the French boys’ immature advances as soon as I had a chance to gaze around at the lively Parisian streets. I weaved past one of the leisurely cafés that lined boulevard St. Michel and fixed my eyes on a group of four French women feasting on a meal of cheesy crêpes, colorful salads, and my favorite ham and cheese sandwich—the croque-monsieur. Across the street, a tall, iron gate surrounded the Luxembourg Gardens, and a group of high school-aged girls and boys lingered at the entrance, tossing French slang and flirty glances at each other.

  As I turned the corner onto rue Soufflet and spotted the towering Panthéon building at the end of the street, I realized I’d been in such a jet-lagged haze over the past week that I’d barely left my dorm room. There was so much life in this city, so much excitement. I made a pact with myself right then and there, that no matter how bad I felt about losing Jeff, I wouldn’t waste my year in Paris by moping around by myself.