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Anticipating Paris
By Administrator | May 16, 2008
It was 1:30 in the morning on a Monday night. I was leaving for Paris in ten hours for a one-day meet up with a friend I knew from the states, and I was tired from my weekend road trip. That wasn’t stopping me because I was in a room full of girls tipsy on champagne. I was sitting on the couch with my arm around a polish girl, on my left, and that arm’s hand laced in the fingers of her roommate sitting to her left. My right hand was holding a Dutch girl’s hand on my right side and someone who I couldn’t see was rubbing my head from behind.
We were snapping goofy pictures and all attention was on me. I looked over at my buddy sitting across from us, catching his eyes, and he busted out laughing. What the hell had I done to warrant this much attention all at once? It seemed like a feeding frenzy.
The night had started out with only one rule. No red wine. It was a going away party for one of our friends who lived in that apartment, which was full of white couches in its cavernous living area, and we had made a disaster of the upholstery during a previous Tapas and Sangria night.
I was actually the first to show up, which is a big no-no, but it was OK because I’m pretty good friends with these girls. I dressed up for the part that night because I just felt like it, plus I’m finally noticing that your clothing makes a difference.
I met up with a friend and we picked up some Champagne and went over. The night was relatively cocktail-ish, except the numbers were in my favor because most of the people who study here in Montpellier are girls.
During the night I had all sorts of interesting conversations about stories from afar and about US politics (which some people overseas love to drive home) and international economics (which we promptly cut off when it got too dry). We threw out some “get to know you” personality games, which were funny and lightened the mood, and we kept uncorking bottles of champagne. I think things generally turned in my favor that night when several of my girlfriends talked me up to some of the other girls who didn’t know me so well. (You get big brownie points when girls prop you up to other girls.) I think this started a subliminal competition for my attention.
Towards the end of the night I’m there on the couch inebriated in estrogen and trying to get my thoughts strait on where to go from here. The problem was that the group wanted to split, half go out dancing and half stay there and chill. My problem was that I was lazy and hadn’t focused my sites on one person (“blindly shooting into the flock” is what we call it in Texas).
My better judgment told me told me to stay and hang out at the apartment, but a larger group was going out dancing and all were calling my name, saying “matt matt, come with us…please.” (I guarantee I’ll get in trouble for this post…) Granted, it was a Monday night and the chances of something being open were slim, but they were doing a good job of convincing me so my friend and I left with the group of girls out on the search to find an open dancing spot.
Nothing was open. The night went downhill quickly when the girls grouped together, collectively decided the night was over and left, leaving my friend and I standing alone in the proverbial dust. My jaw was on the ground and I was shocked, knowing that in a matter of two minutes I had been frozen out so quickly, but such is the group mentality of girls, I suppose.
I look at my friend and we decide second best is late night eats. Nothing open. Damnit. I head home and anticipate Paris.
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