Needle in a [French] Haystack
Part 1 - BETROTHED in front of the Venus De Milo
I’m not the friend that you ask to find someone on Instagram… I literally don’t understand how the girls out there will meet a guy on the train and then an hour later have found him on IG and have already slid into his DMs. (I’m also an idiot when it comes to sliding into DMs, maybe some of you have tips on how to do that in a cool-girl mysterious type of way?)
It doesn’t make sense to me, in terms of who I am, because I am kind of a computer nerd — I was trained at Apple headquarters and was meeting with programming engineers to give them tips on editing software when I was 27 years old. (and I would cry at home when my coworkers would call me KID GENIUS, a nickname I now wish I still had!) but searching on Instagram confuses me, wtf do you type into IG that would even get you close to finding someone you know nothing about??
*Also, if you have this ability to find people on IG, DM me immediately* LOL
I went to Paris for the first time last month. And though people talk about it being a city of “love” and “romance” — I wasn’t expecting to find any sort of romance, other than seeing to it that my 76 year old mother had a great time (it has been her lifelong dream to go to Paris). So it was to my utter surprise when on one of our last days there, I think I experienced “love at first sight” for the very first time in all my life…
I had booked a last minute “After Hours” tour of the Louvre — a thing my mother and I had added on because we thought we should probably at least TRY to see the Mona Lisa up close while being at the Louvre (even though everyone says Mona’s quite small, not much to look at, and the lines are always hours long to see her). We waited outside the glass pyramid at 5:45pm — near I guess what they call “the baby cousin” to the Arc De Triomphe. The wind was super cold, and we couldn’t wait to be let inside. The tour organizers started separating us into groups with colored stickers when out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a very charismatic blonde man, who was wearing sunglasses and laughing with an older couple nearby.
And when I say charismatic… I can’t begin to tell you how the charisma was literally emanating off of this man from several feet away, sucking me in like a vortex. The only way I can describe it, is that it's’ one of those weird feelings that you feel when a celebrity is around — like, you can’t help but stare, and you feel like you might be in slow motion.
Somehow, I knew this guy must be one of the tour guides. I wondered which tour guide our group would be given, and if the Universe would curse me by giving me someone else other than him…
[Not the real Henri pictured… AI generated with ChatGPT]
A few moments later, he was standing in front of me and my mom. I went into “auto mode” which for me, is usually making really stupid comments that most times get me a chuckle or two. It’s this nervous tick I have where if I don’t know what to say, I say something that I mean to sound like I’m flirting but it just comes out really weird and sort of crass. It never comes off as flirting either — which is truly sad, because I don’t think I actually even know how to actually flirt.
He said, “Hello.” and I think my heart fell into my intestines somewhere.
And I, being the idiot that I am, stupidly asked if he was an actor — because his face felt familiar. This was not just a pick up line, it was an actual thought, I swear…and like wtf — way to seem shallow and idiotic and exactly what people would think of someone from LA, FML! Like was I expecting for him to say he’d done a couple CSI episodes?! A season of Glee?! Smdh.
He laughed pretty hard when I asked that, and basically said he’s never been in anything and had lived in Paris his whole life. I can’t tell you how attractive it is for someone to NOT be an actor, or influencer or trying to be famous. Truly refreshing. He also mumbled something about having a very “forgettable face…” which I completely and utterly disagree with. Because just like my idiot comments, his blue eyes still haunt me all this time later… sigh.
He then introduced himself to our group, for this story, we’ll call him Henri. He said he had studied art history in school and was now a lawyer — and that he still liked to give tours for fun. And, praise be, he would be our group’s tour guide for the next three mutha-f*ckin’ hours.
I don’t think I’ve felt “love at first sight” since maybe 8th grade, and it was for this idiot all the girls liked named Neil. I still have dreams about him sometimes, and they always freak me out, because he’s still like 14 in the dream and I’m me, like, present day. Gross. But whatever it is I felt that day, is a feeling I’ve not felt in twenty or more years…
Henri began his tour by learning all our names and counting us all in french… un deux trois quatre…. He had sparkly blue eyes and perfectly straight teeth — not the faux white veneer ones like you see here in LA — and a curly, messy, adorable coif of blonde hair atop his head. Throughout his tour he would divulge little pieces of info about himself — he’s 29, a Gemini, “a total nerd” by his own description.
We followed him through the halls of Greek and Roman statues — where he told us the Romans had copied the original Bronze statues the Greek’s had made, a tidbit of info I would reuse on him later in another one of my stupid comments…
We stopped in front of Venus De Milo — otherwise known as Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. And though I was hanging on every word out of this man’s mouth already — he looked right into my eyes and stuttered. He had meant to say “betrayed” but instead accidentally looked me in the eyes and said “betrothed,” and then lost what he was talking about…
My heart scooted down in my intestines a bit more… If he wasn’t meant to be the love of my life, then this was all a cruel trick the universe was playing on me.
[Not the real Henri pictured… AI generated with ChatGPT]
BETROTHED. In front of the f*cking Venus De Milo. In PARIS. Like are you kidding me?
My mother had had knee surgery about 8 months ago, and was determined to make it through this three hour tour with her cane and a handful of Tylenol. Henri would always wait for me and mom before he began the next part of the tour. He knew we were in the back, hobbling along, trying to get up the stairs, trying to hurry mom over to the group or to find a bench nearby.
At one point, he offered to leave the group and take my mom and I up the elevator instead of us trying to make it up four flights of stairs. I again went into “auto mode” asking him questions about what kind of law he practiced (“Criminal”) and if it was just like NCIS (“yes, exactly like it”). I forget exactly what I asked next, but he again said something about “being such a big nerd that he was the nerd of all nerds…” to which I finally responded with something actually funny, “You’re the Bronze nerd that the Romans made marble copies of?”
SUCCESS. He laughed harder than I had seen before. I patted myself on the back for using actual history in such a niche joke. He was just happy someone on the tour had listened so intently to what he had been saying, I think. He just mumbled something about me being “astute,” and how he planned to use that joke in the future.
When we got to Mona Lisa — there were twenty-somethings crowded in front of her, stuck to the velvet rope like gate fleas waiting to board the plane. Henri described Mona as being so delicate she had to be temperature controlled — and something about the Italians wanting her back. A request to which he said the French responded with, “No Thank You.” I leaned into mom, thinking no one would hear me and said, “well, that’s a very French thing to say isn’t it.” Henri laughed having heard my snarky comment and said, “Actually it was, ‘No, Merci.” When I rolled my eyes, he said, “You’re Italian aren’t you?” and when I nodded all he said was, “I had a feeling….”
[Not the real Henri or ME pictured… AI generated with ChatGPT]
We tried to get as close as we could, my mom trying to navigate through these pushy tourists with her cane. We laughed as we took some of the worst selfies of us with crooked a$$ Mona in the back, who was still about twenty feet away. We escaped the crowd with a sort of “well, we tried” shrug, and started to make our way back to Henri…
But instead, the security guard opened the velvet rope and invited just my mother and I inside to take a photo with Mona! We stood near the glass with Mona in between us, my mom smiling SO HUGE I could have cried. The security guard took several high-angle-no-chins photos, and then helped us back through the ropes. I, of course, was wondering why the security guard would have picked us out of the crowd and said, “Wow, mom, you must really be milking that cane…” (meant in an absolutely loving way, lol) but then Henri, with his adorable blue eyes chimed in with: “Oh, I asked him to do that for you….”
My heart had fallen out of my butt and is somewhere on the floor of the Louvre…
[Not the real me or my battered/broken heart pictured… AI generated with ChatGPT]
When they say you left your heart in Paris, I think it's because everyone gets a tour from a gorgeous young French Man who happens to be an expert in Art History (like as a F*cking Hobby?!) who does special things for old women like my mother… like, OBVIOUSLY my heart is on the floor.
And though it likely wasn’t a gesture for ME (in his desperate attempt to show me he would do anything for our love? No, only in my dreams) it was for this old woman on a cane, whose dream was to come to Paris, and who was gonna make it through this tour of the Louvre and see the damn Mona Lisa, even if she had to limp her way through.
At the end of the tour, I took a few photos of my mom and Henri — she kept thanking him for taking the time to help her get around and see the Mona Lisa up close. And sadly, tragically, devastatingly, just like that, our tour was over. I’d never see Henri again (or will I?) — and I didn’t know how to ask for info to keep in touch without sounding like my usual crass weirdo self. (How do you young people do this???)
Our group dispersed, and Henri hurried up the stairs and off to what I assume was a night of drinks with his friends, in some French cafe, where they probably discussed what books they’ve been reading, or maybe just the silly American girl on the evening tour who said the most random things…
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