Weren’t we going to talk about this? Shouldn’t we sit down and do the whole, “you don’t sleep with anybody else and I won’t sleep with anybody else and we’re going to put this up on Facebook” thing?Īs it turns out, “the talk” doesn’t really exist in France, only in the States. Not only had this guy referred to me as his girlfriend, but other people acknowledged the “officialness” of our relationship. “ Ta copine as in, your girlfriend?” I asked. Thinking I was missing something in translation - copine can mean “female friend” or “girlfriend,” depending on the context - I asked him to clarify. One night over dinner, Pierre told me he ran into his ex on the train and she asked about his copine. Until we had “the talk,” we wouldn’t be “together.” Pierre and I would do all the hand-holding and the goodbye kisses I’d done with other guys, and just like these guys convinced me we were never in a relationship, I convinced myself this time too. So of course, when I started seeing someone while interning in Paris this summer - let’s call him Pierre - I expected things to go in a similar fashion. Since we never had “the talk,” we were never “together.” The logic of that completely eludes me. I got cheated out of a relationship based solely on a technicality. Color me surprised when he then used the fact that we were not official against me. To the outside world, I’m sure we seemed like a real couple with all the hand-holding and the kissing and the Friday night dates. I found myself in such a situation not long ago with a guy I dated for a few months. I’m sorry, dude, but I don’t sleep with my good friends. We did all sorts of things people in relationships do, but ask them and I’m sure they’ll say that we were nothing more than good friends. The few guys I’ve dated during my time at MIT have been a mixed bag, but the one thing they have in common is that they all exploited the unofficialness of our relationship. I don’t understand how “it’s complicated” ever came to be a relationship status, and I don’t understand why people would pay to read books or see movies based around making women realize that guys are not that into them.īut more than all of those things, what confuses me most is all the to-do over being “official.” I’ve always been perplexed by all the rules and conventions of dating the American way. Campus Life A tale of French bravery and American cowardice All you American guys can learn something from how the French do it By M.
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