At 31, Exhausted and Single: Would a Series of Encounters with French Men Restore My Joy of Living?

“Tu es où?” I texted, peeking out the terrace to check if he was close. I inspected my lip color in the glass over the fireplace. Then worried whether my basic French was off-putting.

“On my way,” he responded. And before I could doubt about welcoming a strange man to my place for a initial meeting in a overseas location, Thomas knocked. Soon after we shared la bise and he shed his layers of winter gear, I noticed he was even more attractive than his online images, with messy blond hair and a sight of chiseled core. While pouring wine as carefreely as I could, mentally I was shouting: “It’s going as planned!”

I devised it in autumn 2018, worn out from nearly a decade of calling New York home. I was employed full-time as an publishing professional and writing my novel at night and on weekends for several years. I pushed myself so hard that my agenda was written in my diary in brief intervals. On weekend nights, I came home and lugged an laundry sack of dirty clothes to the public washroom. After returning it up the multiple staircases, I’d yet again access the writing project that I knew, probably, may never get published. Meanwhile, my colleagues were advancing their careers, entering matrimony and acquiring upscale homes with basic appliances. At 31, I felt I had nothing to show for it.

NYC gentlemen – or at least the ones I dated – seemed to think that, if they were over six feet and in finance or law, they were top of the world.

I was also practically abstinent: not only because of busyness, but because my former partner and I kept meeting up once a week for dinner and Netflix. He was the first guy who approached me the initial evening I socialized after relocating to NYC, when I was twenty-two. Although we broke up down the line, he re-infiltrated my life an amicable meeting at a time until we always found ourselves on the different corners of his sofa, reacting in sync at Game of Thrones. As comforting as that routine was, I didn’t want to be intimate companions with my former flame while having a celibate life for the rest of my life.

The occasional instances I experimented with Tinder only crushed my confidence further. Romance had shifted since I was last in the scene, in the bygone days when people actually communicated in nightspots. NYC bachelors – or at least the ones I dated – seemed to think that, if they were over six feet and in finance or law, they were masters of the universe. There was zero effort, let alone chivalry and affection. I wasn’t the only one feeling insulted, because my companions and I compared experiences, and it was as if all the unattached individuals in the city were in a race to see who could be more indifferent. Things had to evolve, significantly.

One day, I was arranging my library when an vintage art book made me pause. The cover of a classic art volume features a close-up of a historical illustration in gold and lapis lazuli. It revived my days spent in the study hall, poring over the visual reproductions of religious artifacts and analyzing the famous artworks in the French gallery; when a publication presuming to explain “the beginning of art” and its evolution through human history felt meaningful and worthwhile. All those thoughtful debates and dreams my friends and I had about aesthetics and reality. My heart ached.

I decided then that I would resign from work, move out of New York, store my belongings at my family home in Portland, Oregon, and reside in France for three months. Of course, a impressive list of writers have departed from the United States to France over the years – renowned writers, not to mention many other creatives; perhaps emulating their path could help me become a “real writer”. I’d stay 30 days per location in three different cities (Grenoble for the mountains, a Mediterranean locale, and a cultural hub), improve my language skills and experience the artworks that I’d only studied in photographs. I would hike in the Alps and swim in the Mediterranean. And if this led me to encounter handsome locals, why not! Surely, there’d be no superior solution to my exhaustion (and inactive period) than heading off on an adventure to a nation that has a reputation for romance.

These fantastical ideas drew only a subdued response from my companions. They say you don’t qualify as a local until you’ve spent ten years, and close to that point, my exhausted cohort had already been fleeing for better lifestyles in Budapest, Amsterdam, California. They did hope for me a quick improvement from New York romance with sexy French men; they’d all dated one or two, and the general opinion was that “Frenchies” in New York were “weirder” than those in their native country but “appealing” compared with many other options. I left such discussions out of the discussion with my parents. Often anxious about my 80-hour weeks and recurring health issues, they supported my decision to emphasize my well-being. And that was what most excited me: I was proud that I could manage to take care of myself. To restore happiness and figure out where my life was headed, in work and life, was the goal.

The initial evening with Thomas went so as intended that I thought I blew it – that he’d never want to reconnect. But before our garments were removed, we’d spread 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 truly planning to show me his favourite trail?

“Absolutely, no concerns,” he texted back within a short time.

He was much more romantic than I’d imagined. He grasped my fingers, praised my clothing, made food.

He was true to his promise. A couple of evenings after, we went to a path entrance in the alpine region. After hiking the snowy trail in the dark, the urban center lay glowing beneath our feet. I made an effort to match the passion of the situation, but I couldn’t converse fluently, let alone