The Travel Dating Semi-Finals | Romance x Rail Part 3
I started the Romance x Rail (RxR) project on March 26th, 2024. To get all caught up on this journey, check out:
Romance by Rail page where I explain how I set up this intentional project
Part 1: 8 weeks, 7 countries, 5 dates. Dating from Paris to Istanbul: here’s what went down
Part 2: 5 More First Dates & a Second Date - Summer in Turkey | Romance x Rail Part 2
The goal of the RxR project has been to find a “soul mate” type romantic partner while traveling and dating.
This 3rd installment takes place between July 19th–October 10th, 2024. This is the part of my journey that gets serious! I revisit some previous matches and serious relationship bids are made and considered.
The little teal-colored circles with flags are the places I traveled to this leg of my journey.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t take the train or bus everywhere I wanted to go on this part of my journey. I had to take several flights, which I generally try to avoid. Here are some of the train routes I did:
My itinerary:
Antalya, Turkey —> London, UK - Flew to London on Friday, July 19th
London —> Oslo, Norway - Flew to Oslo on Monday, July 22nd
Oslo —> Bergen, Norway - Took the train on Friday, July 26th
Bergen —> Paris, France - Flew to Paris on Monday, August 5th
Paris —> Aix-en-Provence, France - Took the train on Monday, August 12th
Marseille, France —> Paris - Took the train on Friday, August 16th
Paris —> Edinburgh, Glasgow, Isle of Skye, UK (Scotland) - Took the train on Friday, September 6th and stayed until Thursday, October 10th
How long I was in each place:
London - 2.5 days
Oslo - 5 days
Bergen - 10 days
Paris - 1 week
Aix/Marseille - 5 days
Paris (again) - 3 weeks
Scotland - 1 month
How did I choose this route?
A conference took me to London, then a friend’s wedding to Norway. As I described in Part 2, I looked at all my matches and decided to reach out to a match I’d connected with on The League (dating app) but never got the chance to meet in Paris. He was excited to meet up so I said I’d come to Paris for the Olympics, which were the first weeks of August.
I then had plans to meet a friend in Aix-en-Provence in the South of France. That’s where I encountered a little bit of a crisis…what now? Where do I go? It’s so much more expensive in Western Europe than in Eastern Europe and Turkey that I wanted to be mindful of my budget. My friend said I should go to the place I would most want to date and find someone, not the cheapest, most affordable place. She encouraged me to take a leap of faith and not worry too much about the money. So, I went back to Paris, even though this was one of the most expensive options!
Then a friend asked me to dog-sit for her in Edinburgh and this was great timing because my Schengen Area days were up on October 7th.
As I described in Part 2, all but a handful of European countries are in this thing called the “Schengen Area,” where they’ve all agreed that visitors from the US (and other places outside the Area) can visit collectively for a maximum of 90 days every 180 days. These days do not have to be consecutive. It’s just at any given day, during the past 180 days, did you spend 90 of them in the Schengen Area? If so and you don’t have another visa, you gotta get out.
I headed to Scotland and joined the website Trusted Housesitters to find 2 other dog-sitting gigs to help me save money on accommodation. Scotland is EXPENSIVE—in a way other places hadn’t been so far. Dog-sitting was the only way I could afford to travel there.
Here is my referral link for Trusted Housesitters. If you join with this link, we both save money on the membership fee.
The UK is outside the Schengen area and Americans can stay for up to 6 months without a visa. I then headed to Turkey to meet my mom and a best girlfriend for a tourist trip but I’ll detail that in Part 4. Staying in the UK and Turkey for so long meant I could go back to the Schengen area in late October.
It had always been my plan to head north for the summer. I had been in Turkey from May to July. I thought I would spend the whole summer in Scandinavia but it’s just so flippin’ expensive in Scandinavia that I couldn’t fit it into my budget. Had I been able to get some more consulting gigs, that would have been my preference but the growth of the business I started in February has proved to go a little more slowly than anticipated.
Did I stick to my goals in Part 2?
My intentions:
Have a “feeling of adventure” (Sartre) ✔
Stay curious ✔
Cultivate gratitude ✔
Make solid plans but be flexible and go with the flow ✔
Talk to strangers ✔
Prioritize staying in and working at (coworking offices, for example) places where I can meet and talk to people ✔
Go on dates ✔
Find a “Soul Mate” type partner - ✗ but getting closer!
A highlight was visiting Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir’s gravesite in Paris.
I was weakest in cultivating gratitude, especially through my daily meditation practice. As the dating heated up, I left some of my regular routines off the schedule, which can’t be sustained for long.
I was strongest with being flexible and going with the flow. I didn’t know what it would be like to meet someone I wanted to see a lot. I had to adapt my travel plans quickly.
The dates!
As with Parts 1 and 2, all the men will be called “John” but in their home country's language, for fun, and for their anonymity.
This part of my dating project felt like men were advancing in a bracket competition, not unlike the Olympic basketball teams I went to see in Paris. I got closer with Can 18, Jean 6, and Jean 1 as they all made bids for something more serious.
London - no dates
I was busy at the conference. But I did get to see two friends of mine which was great!
Oslo - no dates but kept texting with or talking to Can 18 nearly every day. 1 mental health crisis.
Can 18
Bergen - no dates but there was a flirty person at my friend’s wedding
Johan 19
Paris - 1 whirlwind love affair, 1 first date, 1 almost date
Jean 6
Jean 1
Jean 20
Aix-en-Provence/Marseille - no dates but saw 2 girlfriends
Paris (again) - a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th date!
Jean 1
Scotland - chatted with 1 guy on Bumble and set up a date but ultimately decided to delete the apps!
John 21
Jean 1 - came to Scotland for a romantic trip
London
This is where things start to take a slight turn with things going wrong—I’d been incredibly lucky until this leg of my journey in terms of no major mishaps, losses, or thefts. While staying at a hostel in London, someone stole a bag of mine with two colorful Turkish towels in it that were supposed to be a wedding gift for friends of mine in Bergen.
I was here for a conference and didn’t have time to date although I kept the dating apps open—didn’t find anyone and it was such a short stop-over. The conference was about women’s issues so there were no men there.
Oslo
Things started off with a bang in Oslo when the airline, Norwegian Air, lost my checked luggage. This has happened to me before and usually I get the luggage withing 24 hours. However, someone made an error when typing in my bag as “arrived” and it wasn’t showing up in the system. I didn’t get my bag, with all of my everything in it, until 5 days later, just an hour before I needed to get on my train to Bergen, and after some serious pleading.
I encountered my first significant mental health crisis in Oslo. I want to share what happened because I don’t want my travel stories to imply that there are no risks or negative events. Even though this was scary and difficult, I felt fully supported by my friends and was able to get through it okay.
So…
I arrived in Oslo and had plans to visit an old colleague, someone older than me that I looked up to like a mentor. I hadn’t seen him in 10 years and he had kept saying, “come see my new farm outside of Oslo!” I start to get small intuitive hits that maybe they were viewing my visit in a romantic way and not a friend or professional way but I, unfortunately, ignored them. “I’m only visiting 2 days,” I thought, “it will be fine.”
But when I got there it became clear that this person had picked up a severe drinking habit since I’d last known them. The more he had to drink, the more sexual things he wanted to talk about. He offered me some wine and I had the thought, “don’t get drunk or tipsy, it’s not safe,” so I nursed 1 glass the whole evening spanning several hours, keeping my full wits about me.
We caught up over wine in his kitchen while he chopped and prepared an elaborate dinner. I watched him pour wine from large boxes, of which he had several in the kitchen. It was too much wine for any one person. At one point a friend of his called him over FaceTime, meaning, called with video, and it became clear that they had been talking about me and my visit before I arrived which was the creepiest feeling.
The previous week I had watched a series of videos on TikTok by a woman who had attended the now infamous Sean Combs (P. Diddy) parties and was pressured by Sean Combs and Kanye West to drink something she felt they had spiked with drugs, probably GHB. These two guys talking about/with me felt predatory in the same way. My former colleague wanted me to go with him to his family’s cabin in an even smaller town the next night. I didn’t know what to say. I could tell this was meant as some sort of romantic excursion and in a coercive, not-explicitly-stated way. I was creeped out!
The next morning, he made me breakfast of yogurt and fruit. I sat in the dining room while he prepared it in the kitchen. I couldn’t see him making the food. I continued to feel deeply uneasy about plans for the day and evening. I told him I had some work to do and went to the room I was staying in. As I got out of the shower and started drying my hair, putting makeup on and getting ready for the day, I started to have the sensation of full-body flushing. The only way I could describe it was as though I was on MDMA (molly) but without the eurphoria. “I don’t know what this is but I don’t feel safe,” I thought, starting to panic. Due to having seen the TikTok series a few weeks before before, and due having PTSD from a negative travel event in Iceland in 2016, my mind created a story that maybe he had put something in my breakfast. Maybe I’d been drugged and had limited time fully conscious.
I called the person that I was supposed to stay with later that week in Oslo, a close friend of a close friend who I hadn’t ever met before in real life. “I need help,” I told him. I shared the wild story and that I was panicking and asked if he could pick me up. I was out in the country where there was no train station and no Uber. I didn’t know what to do to leave. He suggested I call the police so I did and they said, “just walk out.” I asked them how I would get to public transportation and explained that I was panicked and feeling strange. They again told me to just leave by foot. So I called my friend’s friend again and he said he had a friend who lived in the next town over. I packed all my things and slipped out of the house unnoticed and met his friend at the bottom of the driveway of this farm. He dropped me off at the nearest hospital where he said I should get tested to see if I had indeed been drugged.
I wasn’t fully certain if I’d been drugged but I felt drugged. So, okay, even though it seemed wild, what was the harm in making sure by getting tested?
The Norwegian healthcare system is amazing. All the nurses and doctors I saw were very sympathetic and said I’d done the right thing by leaving if I didn’t feel safe.
I called Can 18, who I’d been on a date with a few nights earlier in Antalya, Turkey. He’s a medical doctor and I thought he’d have insights for me. He was extraordinarily comforting to me!! He texted me and called me several times over the next hour to check in on me and make sure I was okay.
The hospital informed me that no substances came up in my urine but that they only test for a couple of major things. While it was possible he put something strange in my food, the most logical conclusion was that I felt in danger and my body and nervous system mobilized in a way to get me out of the house immediately. As I left the hospital and walked to the bus stop, still feeling very strange in my body and unwell, I felt absolutely bat shit crazy.
I called a close friend of mine, KK, from the bus station and said, “I had just been telling people that I feel sane for the first time in my life starting last year.”
“Yeah, you might want to walk that back,” he replied. LOL! Never tell people you’re sane. It can only backfire.
I asked Can 18 if he thought I was crazy. “No, I don’t think you’re crazy,” he reassured me in his warm, doctorly voice. He shared a time in his life when he’d gone through something similar—making up an elaborate story when in a stressful situation. “Your reaction was normal. We’ve all been there.”
I texted two girlfriends that I needed to marry Can 18. One responded that while I’m sure I felt reassured and comforted during a stressful time, I needed to withhold making any major life decisions until I came back down to Earth. The other girlfriend immediately gave me her full support. We all need both friends y’all. It takes a village.
I processed with my friend KK on the phone and felt very, very supported. Also, the Norwegian healthcare system was just…otherworldly good. My nurse actually stayed by my bed for about a half an hour because she was so concerned about me…being American—lol! “Your healthcare system is really scary to us,” she shared, “are you all okay? You don’t seem okay.” I explained that people adapt and make it work because what choice to we have. She had lots of questions.
I texted another friend of mine from my hometown who lives in Oslo. He was supposed to be out of town that week but stayed at the last minute to take a sick cat to the vet. “Oh my god,” he empathized as I shared what had just happened, “come on over immediately. You’ll stay at our home. How can I best support you?”
His and his family’s home was such a soft landing pad. We went hiking on the trails behind his house and caught up while I decompressed. He took me to buy socks and underwear since my luggage was still lost.
It was wild to go from feeling so direly unsafe that I hallucinated that I’d been drugged just to escape, to feeling so safe, supported, and comforted.
While hiking we saw a rare Black Viper on the side of the trail, wound tightly into a little ball. This echoed the sighting of the dead crow I’d seen in Basel, Switzerland. What did it mean? I’ve always loved snakes since 3rd grade when our teacher, Mr. Scott kept them in the classroom and we took turns feeding them mice and cleaning their glass cage. Vipers are a venomous snake—this sighting was both beautiful and dangerous.
After staying with my friend, I then headed to stay with the friend of a friend who helped get me out of the pickle the day before. I’d planned to stay with him a couple of nights after some family members who were visiting him departed.
We laughed that that was such a dramatic way to meet and connect for the first time and that we’d be bonded for life now. We text each other our Wordle and Connections, two word-based puzzle games from the New York Times, scores now every day along with our friend in common so the connection has stayed strong.
We had a great time visiting a sculpture museum just outside of Oslo and I encouraged him to try the dating apps to meet his romantic partner goals. Here are my best tips for dating on and off the apps, if you want them.
Finally, after much pleading, Norwegian Air scoured their lost luggage and found my piece, which hadn’t been entered into the system correctly, dropping it off just minutes before I needed to leave my new friend’s house to take a train to Bergen.
I had a video call with Can 18 while staying with my new friend and the butterflies remained—I was still feeling attracted to him.
While on the train to Bergen I reflected on the kindness that had been given to me in a moment of need. We can’t avoid all danger out there, it’s simply not possible. I’m proud of myself for asking for help as soon as I thought I needed it, even if my body had to get me where my mind wouldn’t. My friend’s friend sprung into action even though he didn’t yet know me well. The friend of his, a complete stranger to me, who came and picked me up was a Godsend. That was so incredibly kind and generous! My other friend who immediately percieved the gravity of what I’d just gone through and made sure he held space—gah! So good! Can 18 who kept following up and told me I’m not crazy—I get teary eyed just thinking about it. The kind and nurturing healthcare providers at the hospital—they sure got their trauma-informed training! No gaslighting or shaming there! And my friend KK laughing with me at my temporary insanity, but also the saga of my ongoing mental health challenges over the years—invaluable. All my needs were met. Even the Norwegian Air lost luggage woman made sure to give me a heartfelt apology about my luggage being lost for 5 days—it was so uncorporate that it blew me away.
This is how negative events can be—opportunities to connect with others and remember our shared humanity. Many Buddhist teachers have written and spoken about how when things are going well, we’re up on our high horse, looking down at others, disconnected. The negative events, while difficult or painful, enable us to connect and give and receive love. I’m eternally grateful for everyone who supported me.
Bergen
The train ride to Bergen was so insanely gorgeous as the route took us through scenic national parks with moutains and gushing waterfalls. The peace of the city was restorative and I was excited to have my luggage back so I could do some trail running.
Can 18 shared with me that ever since seeing a music video by the Kings of Convenience featuring Bergen, he’d been obsessed with the city. He’d always wanted to visit it but hadn’t been yet. So he wanted every scenic photo and update. “Are we texting because he likes me or because he’s obsessed with this place?” I thought.
I was too shaken up by the scary creepy-male-encounter in Oslo to date in Bergen. I needed a break.
I attended my friend’s wedding and it was lovely! She’s one of those special people who carries a lot of love and softness with her in every interaction so the wedding and reception felt full of love.
They had friends perform musical songs at the reception. A couple performed and they were really good—it seemed like they probably performed frequently at events and gatherings. The performer who followed their act was a woman with a pianist accompanying her on an electric keyboard. Her stage presence was impressive! I was utterly in awe of her every gesture. She started to sing and it was good but in a way that was above and beyond the previous act. “I’ll bet she does this for a living,” I thought. When she finished I tapped on the shoulder of the nearest Norwegian person and asked them who that was. “Oh, that’s Aurora,” they said. “She’s famous.” They helped me find her on Instagram and, uh, yeah, she definitely sings for a living. She’s quite possibly the most famous in Norway! She has 3.8 million followers! It turned out she’s friends with the groom (and now also the bride, my friend).
It was incredible to hear and see her perform just a few feet away in a small room. The song she performed—I thought it was the most beautiful love song I’d ever heard in my life! Worth the listen:
Every every everyone at this wedding was partnered and talked about their children in conversation. A couple “adopted” me when they saw I was there alone and the woman in the couple was pregnant with their second child. So, when a cute guy started flirting with me I was taken by surprise. I’d been hanging out with him and his friend, walking across Bergen with them from the ceremony to the reception site. His friend shared that he was getting married the following week and I congratulated him. I assumed everyone was married.
But then after all the performances and as the DJs were getting started, these two guys found me on the dance floor and started asking me pointed questions about whether I was seeing anyone. “Ohhhh this guy is single,” I realized (the one not getting married). I was getting hook-up vibes as opposed to date vibes and I didn’t want anything casual. So I was vague in response to their questions, implying that maybe I was seeing someone (maybe I wasn’t). I danced next to the cute guy for awhile and eventually he gave up and went home. The DJs were amazing so I stayed dancing until 1 AM. The dance floor was still packed when I left. Norwegians can really party!
The next day I added the cute guy as a friend on Facebook and he added me back and messaged me immediately. We had a fun and flirty conversation but he had his friend’s wedding to attend the following weekend so we never met up. My friend the bride gave him her full endorsement and loved the gossip and drama of a potential pairing among her friends.
I had a 90 minute phone call with Can 18 in which we really started to get to know each other. I started to feel anxious about my plans to meet up with Jean 6 in Paris when I was feeling so close to Can 18. I asked a fellow hostel dorm mate, a woman about 20 years old, what she thought I should do. I explained the whole thing to her. “Date them all!” she said, “Don’t limit yourself! You don’t have to feel guilty. You don’t owe anyone anything yet.” So wise from this young person!
Jean 6 was texting me a lot too and set up a real (real!) date with me. Unlike the ultra-casual walking dates I described in Part 1, he let me know that he was excited to meet me and take me out. I was nervous but also had this gut feeling that we were really going to hit it off.
As a chaotic send-off, yet another one of my personal items was stolen in a hostel—a pricey power converter box that could be used universally and had plugs and every USB outlet on it. Sigh…
I did many great trail runs but opted not to adventure out to the nearby national parks. I needed rest time to reset.
Because the chaos hadn’t quite met it’s peak, I had to have just one more mental health crisis on the flight from Bergen to Paris. I fly pretty often and I have rules to make sure I don’t have panic attacks. I identify with the traits of a “highly sensative person.” Lights, smells, tastes, and textures often have to be just right for me, otherwise I start feeling stressed. I feel I’ve done a good job of regulating myself in these moments but every once in awhile I slip up. I know that when I fly, I typically need to sit on the end or middle—sitting with two folks blocking my escape can feel too claustrophobic. I also need to wear loose fitting pants or sweatpants, and loose-fitting sliding shoes. I boarded and I had been assigned a window seat. I accidentally was wearing jeans and lace up tennis shoes. I sat there as the plane boarded and it was mid-morning. The sun beamed down on my seat. Planes often don’t have the AC on until take-off. I started to feel extraordinarily cramped—overwhelmed by the sun and heat and the tight-fitting heavy clothes I was wearing. A panic attack was coming on. I locked eyes with a flight attendent as she passed by. “Hey, I need some help. I’m having trouble breathing.” She got right into gear, asking the two folks next to me to get up and let me out. She escorted me to the very front row where there was a vacant seat. My whole body was on fire. She brought me a cup of ice and I rubbed ice cubes on the back of my neck and my cheeks for the duration of the flight, trying to cool down. Luckily for me, the Norwegian woman next to me worked in healthcare and was very nurturing and warm. More nurturing support from Norwegians!
Norway, the country of my ancestors, really did me in…let’s see what France had it store…
Paris
Jean 6 | French | Late 40s | The League app (check Part 1 for the first intro)
I arrived in Paris on Monday and Jean 6 wanted to meet that very night. He planned a date at a fancy rooftop bar and restaurant overlooking the Seine, the river that divides the city into its northern and southern halves. He had a fancy job in media so I felt nervous about meeting him at this nice place with my old nomad rags. I have hippy sensibilities at heart. I packed with me exactly 1 little black dress so I made sure to iron it at my Airbnb before the date.
As I got on the elevator up to the roof (not the one pictured—that’s my Airbnb’s elevator), 3 posh women joined me. I looked down at our feet. They were all wearing very nice, very expensive designer stiletto-heeled sandals. I was wearing a pair of worn-out barefoot-style sandals from a hippy company in Oregon that makes leather elf shoes by hand. I gave myself an internal pep-talk about what’s in my heart and mind being more important than what’s on my feet. I took a deep breath as I got off the elevator and looked around the room for my date.
He was really cute and we hit it off just as I’d expected! He first took me out on the deck for a view of Paris and the Seine—it could not have been a more romantic location! “Let’s come back outside as the sun sets,” he planned for us. We split a bottle of wine, which for me, is enough to get me well drunk. He ordered oysters and a few other food items. We played one of my favorite games which was looking around the room and making up stories about other people on dates. As we were playing this game, a chic-looking blonde woman walked across the restaurant to be seated at her table. “That’s Delphine Arnault,” he said. “Oh, who is that?” I responded. I didn’t know. “She might be the wealthiest woman in the world,” he explained. I was puzzled. “She’s the heir to LVMH.”
I need Wikipedia for this one because I’m not a fashion girlie. “LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE commonly known as LVMH, is a European multinational holding company and conglomerate that specializes in luxury goods and has its headquarters in Paris, France. The company was formed in 1987 through the merger of fashion house Louis Vuitton (founded in 1854) with Moët Hennessy, which had been established by the 1971 merger between the champagne producer Moët & Chandon (founded in 1743) and the cognac producer Hennessy (founded in 1765). In April 2023, LVMH became the first European company to surpass a valuation of $500 billion. In 2023, the company was ranked 47th in the Forbes Global 2000.
LVMH controls around 60 subsidiaries that manage 75 luxury brands. In addition to Louis Vuitton and Moët Hennessy, LVMH's portfolio includes Christian Dior Couture, Givenchy, Fendi, Celine, Kenzo, Tiffany, Bulgari, Loewe, TAG Heuer, Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Sephora and Loro Piana.”
So far, Paris dating was feeling very glamorous!
We watched the sunset over Paris with a view of the Eiffel Tower lighting up with twinkling lights and the Olympic torch, housed in a hot air balloon, rise up into the sky. We decided to walk around Paris. We got back in that same fancy elevator to go down to the ground floor. As I said, I was pretty well drunk. He had been flirting hard and saying that he wanted to kiss me before we left the bar. When we got into the elevator I noticed that we were alone and very close. I leaned toward him to kiss and he didn’t lean toward me. We did kindof kiss but it was very awkward! “Oh wow, I misjudged that!” I thought, embarrassed. But also, more than being embarrassed I thought it was strange that he didn’t mirror me. Normally on date, you’re both reading each other and mirroring each other. If it goes well, you may find yourself accidently sitting just the way they are: crossed legs if they have them, a head on your hand if they do, etc. I’d only misjudged someone wanting to kiss one other time in my life and it was when I was 20 years old and much, more inexperienced and awkward. Maybe I completely misjudged the moment, maybe I was drunk, but also I made a little mental note, “maybe this person isn’t attuning to me or they really want to stay in control.” I needed more data.
We walked to the Olympic torch (pictured above) and while standing there among a crowd of other enthuastic onlookers, he ran into someone he knew and introduced me. It was another really big person in media. The glamour continued! We did make out a lot more and took a blurry selfie that perfectly captured my drunk state of mind and the efforfescent spirit of olympic visitors congregating on the sidewalks and in the parks of Paris. It was the most vibrant and energetic I’d ever seen the city! Despite the elevator mishap, it was a very fun night with lots of talking, laughing, kissing, and wandering around the City of Romance.
He walked me to a metro station and said goodnight. We agreed to meet up the very next night.
We met that night and went out to dinner and he gave me a walking tour of a hipster Parisian neighborhood that was new to me. He told me that the previous night felt like a dream and that now he had to ground us in reality by sharing something with me: that he was currently dealing with a very stressful family issue that was taking up the majority of his time and attention outside of work. He explained the issue to me and I understood that this connection wouldn’t develop into a long term relationship—the timing was just not right. I’m not going to go into details because it’s a private matter but just trust me.
We did proceed to have a short term love affair that week. Sometimes those can be more fun because we can let loose knowing that the stakes are low—no one can reject the other because there’s no future already. Even though we talked and dreamed about what a future could be like, we both knew it would end as soon as I left Paris.
As I was processing this disappointment I recieved an unexpected text message: “Hi Alison, I know it’s been a while and maybe the momentum is gone, but I’d sill be happy to have a drink with you. It’s been a messy year, but I’m getting back on my feet. I loved our conversations and apologize for the last time.” Wait, who is this? I didn’t have the number saved in my phone. Oh, whoa, it was Jean 1! From when I was in Paris in late March.
I waited 7 hours to text him back. As you may or may not remember, he flaked on our date, putting a black mark on the start of my dating project, as the first person I matched and set up a date with. So strange to hear from him 4 months later! We hadn’t kept in touch. “Hey Jean 1!” I texted back, “How did you know I’m in Paris again??”
“Hey! I don’t know! I just tried! I assumed you were still around, not sure why! How long are you staying?”
“That’s wild. I haven’t been back here since we last texted in March and just arrived Monday.”
I was at a Women’s Olympic Basketball game that night, watching USA vs Nigeria in the quarter-finals. It was thrilling! I sent Jean 1 a few photos from the game. Afterwards I met Jean 6 at a cafe where he goes to hang out with other people in his industry. I met some of the most brilliant and interesting people that night. I really liked how social he was and that he had such smart friends.
He asked me if I was seeing anyone else and I said yes, telling him about this project, having him read these blogs, and sharing that I was texting a lot with this doctor from Turkey. He took it all in and then said, “Okay, well, I’m taking tomorrow off from work. We’re spending the whole day together.” This made me laugh on the inside because it completely confirmed what dating influencer Shera Seven always says about men: they will get jealous and protective if they feel you are seeing others—and this will make them show dominance and show up even more for you. I don’t normally try this tactic. I tend to be a just-date-1-guy-at-a-time kinda gal…but here I was seeing in action that the minute he knew there was competition, he pulled out all the stops.
The next day he took me to a really impressive spot for lunch with a prix fixe menu. The food was so good! I felt grateful for this type of dating experience in which I was really being wined and dined and showered with attention and affection.
After spending 4 straight nights and 1 full day with Jean 6, I needed a break so I told him I wasn’t available Friday. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to meet Jean 1 but I was thinking about it. For one thing, I didn’t want to get one-itis with Jean 6. I didn’t want to succumb to tunnel vision and lose my perspective. Dating multiple people helps with this.
I started to notice other moments out of attunement. For one thing, he didn’t like to hold my hand, which I told him was a deal-breaker for me. I can imagine this random small dealbreaker being a Seinfeld episode…Elaine and Jerry arguing, “Yeah, he just didn’t want to hold my hand!” “Why do you need him to hold your hand?!” in their classic large and exaggerated timbre. He avoided eye contact much of the time. Even though intellectually we were really hitting it off, our bodies seemed out of sync. He was guarded.
And the elevator thing with the kiss bothered him. He brought it up multiple times. “Why did you kiss me? You were supposed to wait for me to kiss you.” I’m not sure if I answered, “I was just drunk, man,” but I should have. I wasn’t understanding why he kept bringing it up. What did he want from me? To go back in time and do it over? He wasn’t very physically affectionate and we didn’t kiss much. Every time we kissed it was like I was stealing it from him, although I had learned not to attempt to initiate.
Can 18 had mostly stopped texting or calling me. “So maybe he was in love with Bergen and not me,” I thought.
In Part 2 I said, “They say that the red flags you notice in the beginning will be with you throughout a relationship with someone. I almost canceled on him because of his strange behavior, and as I got to know him more over time, the very same thing would be the reason I moved on.”
We almost didn’t go on a date when we had matched back in Antalya because he wouldn’t firm up plans and then he pushed the meeting time back too late. He and I had talked about arranging to meet again in person, potentially some place between France and Turkey, but he never followed up to make it happen. He expressed that he really liked me and wanted to see me again but there was something wrong where he couldn’t initiate concrete plans.
Jean 1 | French | Mid 40s | The League app (check Part 1 for the first intro)
Jean 1 asked if I was available Friday and I put off texting him most of the day. This was part just-under-my conscious-awareness passive-aggressiveness for what he had done in March, not texting me to confirm that evening’s date until 5:30 PM, and part just plain indecisiveness. I really had Jean 6 on the brain. Jean 6 had a big, charismatic personality and seemed to know everyone and everything about Paris. He was also one of the most intelligent and interesting people I’d ever met. We just talked and debated and poked fun at each other for hours. We had similar life stories, growing up in rougher, lower socioeconomic neighborhoods but then getting into good colleges and finding successful careers. We had a lot in common and shared a similar sense of humor. We discovered that we had this random thing in common which was our shared habit of going for a long walk late at night in search of ice cream. We did this together that Thursday night. But of course, with Jean 6 he had to take me to the absolute best ice cream shop in Paris where he just happened to know the owner, who he introduced me to.
But, let’s shake off the mystique of Jean 6 for a night and meet Jean 1. He proposed a casual walking date and I thought that was the vibe I wanted (see how it’s a sign of ambivalence??) and I took my time responding to his text messages. I was a half hour late to meet him.
We met up in a beautiful park in the center of Paris. He told me there were a lot of bad art shops around the park and did I want a tour? I accepted as we walked around and he narrated the bad art pieces. I thought he was charming and fun.
We continued to walk. We were connecting well so we decided to stop somehwere for a drink. We found the beautiful courtyard of a museum with a patio bar and it seemed perfect. It was warm evening in mid-August. We had to go through a security scanner on our way into the museum’s patio and I was getting flustered with what to put on the conveyer belt to be scanned and what to keep on me as I walked under the security doorway—also not understanding the French spoken by the security guard. Jean 1 leaned over conspiratorially to me as I was getting flustered and whispered about the security guard, “I don’t think he cares.”
Ahh, right. This isn’t airport security. It’s more a formality than anything serious. Move on through, lady!
I appreciated this moment with Jean 1. I thought it was really cute and sweet.
He bought us drinks and we found a seat on the patio. The chairs, while pretty, were sort of awkward for a date because the backs of the seats leaned backward, making it hard to lean forward towards your companion to talk or initiate physical contact through a playful arm or leg swat. I tend to love a good gentle swat or push alongside a playful or teasing comment, something many degrees more gentle than a classic Elaine “get out” shove but of the same spirit.
Unlike my interactions with Jean 6, Jean 1 seemed to be perfectly attuned to me, and vice versa. Our body language started to natually mirror each other. We fell into a nice cadence of conversation—not too intense, not too light. He asked me a lot of great questions about myself. It felt natural and easy. I thought he was very handsome and flirty. I was hoping we would kiss but after the embarrasment of the elevator moment with Jean 6, I knew to hold back and let Jean 1 lead.
He bought us another round of drinks. We took photos of each other. I’m not exactly sure why except that, as mentioned in Part 1, he’s a photographer.
I felt genuinely tired and was looking forward to crashing early after a whirlwind week of intense dates. I wanted to get up early and watch the Men’s Marathon Olympic event. Jean 1 walked me to the nearest Metro station. I really hoped he would kiss me.
We hugged goodbye and instead of pulling all the way out of the hug immediately, we both lingered with our faces close together, holding onto each other. We kissed and it was a perfect kiss—not too long or short—just right for a first date. I pulled away and waved as I decended the escalator down to catch my train. He was going out of town for awhile starting the next day.
“How was the date?” KK texted me the next day. “It was…perfect. It was a perfect date,” I said back. It really was. All of it.
—
Jean 20 | Early 30s | Bumble
Meanwhile, I had been setting up a breakfast date with someone from Bumble—a younger guy. My friends were pestering me to go on as many dates as I could in Paris. “Maybe you’ll date an Olympian!” a few friends encouraged me.
“Would u like to meet ?” he texted me. The use of “u” instead of “you” was a red flag I should have ignored. Nothing good can ever come of people use “u” for “you”.
I responded that I had some screening questions:
What do you do for work?
Do you want kids?
Are you emotionally available? What does this term mean to you?
I thought the screening questions would make him back off but he loved them. He admired my direct communication skills. He answered the questions well. I agreed to meet.
But after the date with Jean 1 on Friday after 4 dates with Jean 6, I knew I didn’t have the emotional energy to date a third guy in Paris this particular week so I bailed on the date. Sorry Jean 20! He was young and worked in finance and I was worried the date would be a little boring.
—
I arrived near the Eiffel Tower Saturday morning with plenty of time to stake out a spot to watch the fastest men in the world run by. I thought about how my ex-boyfriend Kevin, himself an elite fast runner, would have loved to be here. He passed away in 2022. I said a little prayer for him, inviting his spirit to join me. Kevin got me to appreciate the Olympics while we were together. We had watched the 2018 Winter Olympics together on TV when we were together. He loved following and tracking runners, which I grew to also love.
Bzz. I got a text. “I miss you.” It was Jean 6. “I miss you too,” I replied honestly. He was fun and exciting. We made plans to meet that night to watch the Olympics at the Trocadero. The City of Paris had set up a big viewing stadium at the Trocadero with a direct view of the Eiffel Tower. There was stadium seating and giant screens to watch the Olympics all around. It was magical! Everyone was so excited to be there. We met up with 2 of his friends—one of whom helped us get into the VIP seating area. We laughed at the breakdancers, obsessed with the one named Danny Dan. We cheered along with men’s basketball. We took photos in front of the view of the Eiffel Tower. It felt like we were all four old friends. Afterward, we went to a posh rooftop bar and continued the intellectual conversations. It was one of the most fun nights I can remember having in a long time. On the way out of the rooftop bar, I got a selfie of all four of use squished together in the elevator. “You all look like you’re having a blast,” my friends reflected when I sent them the image, “I’m happy for you!” Elevator moment redemption?
The next day he said, “I think we should go to the Olympic Closing Ceremonies. Do you want to go?” “Do you have tickets?” “Let me text someone…” He got tickets.
I agreed to stay over at his place so I went and grabbed my stuff from my Airbnb. The next morning I had a very early train to catch to Aix-en-Provence to meet a girlfriend. We got into a verbal fight that evening before heading to the closing ceremonies. Part of it involved my insecurity around brining all of my nomadic belongings and luggage over to his apartment. He said something like, “you have a lot of stuff!” I sort of happen to think I don’t have that much stuff. I have 1 piece of medium luggage on rollers, one small duffel bag, and a backpack. His comment seemed designed to push me away and I took the bait. I probably should have asked him if he felt sad that our week together was coming to an end.
My nomad luggage.
Then I was putting my food in his fridge and some of it was slices of salami. He told me something about no pork being allowed in his house because he promised his grandmother (he’s Jewish) and it seemed so combative the way he said it. I was trying my hardest to budget well around food and didn’t want to throw it out but when I left the room and came back, he had already thrown it away. I almost started crying. It seems so small looking back. I was being stubborn about it. It was his home after all. He had been buying me food all week. But, along with the luggage comment, and maybe a couple of other passive aggressive comments, it had the effect of making me feel unwelcome. I got emotionally flooded and froze. I couldn’t speak. We went out for Thai food and ate in silence. I was able to say, “just give me an hour and I’ll come back”.
Relationship expert and researcher John Gottman has written that it can take 20 minutes to come back from flooding. I’ve never rleated to that. It’s never taken me less than an hour to calm down from flooding. In this instance it took me 2 full hours before I could interact normally again.
As glamorous as it seemed, I actually didn’t want to attend the Olympic Closing Ceremonies. I knew it would be hours of teams parading around the stadium and would be mostly boring. I expressed this fear but Jean 6 convinced me to go. In the end I’m glad we went but it was part of my shutdown. I was overstimulated after a fast-paced week and hadn’t mentally prepared myself to go to the event. I often have trouble with last-minute changes if I’m already feeling depleted. Jean 6 mostly checked his emails during the mostly boring ceremony in which teams paraded around the stadium.
The next morning I left his apartment in the Uber he had scheduled for me. It was very early in the morning but he walked me out to the car and put my luggage in.
He told me all sorts of things as we were going to bed that night: that he wanted to see my home state of California, that he wanted to meet my parents, that he wanted to think about a life together…but we both knew that couldn’t happen.
I took the train to Aix-en-Provence and decompressed from the most romantically intense week of Romance x Rail thus far.
Aix-en-Provence & Marseille
The week in Aix-en-Provence with my friend AC, was restorative and relaxing. I shared with her about all the Paris happenings. She’d been following along and reading my dating blog.
Where should I go next?! What now? No one I’d dated stood out to me as the obvious choice at that moment to follow up with. Of course I liked many of them but I couldn’t be sure where to spend my precious time and attention. What if I picked the wrong guy?! I agonized over this with AC, dissecting every possible option. I was 39 years old and I desperately wanted to have a baby. I didn’t have any time to waste. I needed to make sure to choose the right person. Some might see this as an unfortunate sense of urgency but I’ve often had good luck with having specific and time-bound goals. It helps us eliminate what’s not for us in a sea of options.
I had a strong support system of supportive friends. There have been about 10 friends with whom I text regular updates including text conversation screenshots and photos of the guys I’m dating. I’ve been getting feedback and input about each one from people I love and trust.
Everyone, including AC, agreed: go for Jean 1.
He’d been texting me daily since our date but since I was so wrapped up with Jean 6, I’d been brushing him off. But if all my friends voted for Jean 1, and we’d had a great first date, it was time to see about getting to know him more. Dating advice influencers on Instagram are always saying, “The only thing you should know about someone after a first date is if you want a second date.” You don’t need to know if you see a future with them. You don’t need to imagine introducing them to your friends and family or wedding bells—just see if you want to meet them again and do that.
He had sent me a playlist he made for me. After leaving him on read for [gulp!] 48 hours, I listened to it several times and texted him back, “I like it!” We texted about music until he said, “When are you coming back to Paris?” “When should I come back?? When do you want to hang out again?”
He proposed a date for that weekend to tour the gardens of the Palace of Versailles after dark in which the fountains would be lit up. It sounded very romantic so I agreed and bought a train ticket back to Paris.
A funny thing happened around this time that I called “Girlfriend Musical Chairs”: nearly all of the men I’d gone on dates in the months prior were reaching out to me to check-in. One told me he’d offer to father my children. One told me he was in love with me. Some check-ins were more vague, “Hey how’s your summer going?”
In musical chairs, there is one fewer chair than players and everyone walks around the chairs while the music is playing. When the music stops, everyone runs to get a chair to avoid being the last one standing without a chair. If you don’t get a chair, you’re out of the game. It felt like everyone was scrambling to get a girlfriend by the end of the summer, just in time for “cuffing season” (fall/winter), in which the weather turns cold and we want someone to cuddle with. Maybe the men I’d dated thought they would see about all their options over the summer. Then when they didn’t find anyone else, they were suddenly scrambling to not be the last one standing without a girlfriend.
Paris (again)
The date was indeed very romantic but it poured buckets of rain—truly a torrential downpour. We were drenched from head to toe by the end of the garden stroll. This added some drama and excitement. We got plastic cups of wine, pulled our raincoat hoods over our heads and wandered around the darkened gardens, searching out the spots of water and lights. It was another perfect date.
I saw Jean 6 one last time and he introduced me to yet another impressively intelligent and talented man in media. We all enjoyed a lively debate on a hot-button current issue—me and these two brilliant French men. I could feel during the conversation that they both respected my opinion and what I had to say. These moments are rare and valuable.
Jean 1 and I joked about doing something crazy like getting matching tattoos for our 3rd date and I found a local artist we both liked but in the end, we didn’t do it. We both liked this piece of flash I found with a sort of black hole portal doorway. Instead, we met for a drink in Paris near where I was staying in the 20th arrondissement.
It was then that I had to bring up something awkward—his ex-partner, the mother of his son who he co-parented with, was watching all of my Instagram stories. “How does she even know who I am?” I implored. “We’ve only gone out twice.” If he had already told her about me, that felt like things were moving way too fast.
I could also see something else happening: she had clicked on a link in my Instagram bio to visit this Kind Warrior website and was reading all of my blogs. The reason website owners can see this is because of IP addresses. We don’t see the person but we see the IP address and the location of the IP address. Once we know which IP address belongs to which person, we can see what they read and when. It’s not exact, however. It doesn’t pick up on everyone and the location can be a little off. If you’re reading this kinda freaked out, you can pay for a VPN and install an app on your phone. It routes you through a different IP address so you can have more anonymous browsing. I use Norton VPN. I pay something like $60 a year.
So, I could see that she had clicked on the link, found my dating story blogs, read them all multiple times, and then sent them to who I assumed was Jean 1. I knew it was her because it happened at the same time that she started watching my Instagram stories.
“I get that they co-parent together but seems a bit obsessive,” I thought. I shared this with a French friend of mine CZ, and he laughed, saying it sounded like typical French drama. Okay then, maybe I could roll with it.
I brought it up over our drink on our 3rd date and he flushed, embarrassed. Yes, this is what happened. And actually, she had called him to warn him about me before sending him one of my blogs—the one where I introduce him as Jean 1 and detail the date we were supposed to have. I had never lied about the fact that I was writing about this dating journey. I told him about it right away when we matched on Hinge in March. He said it still didn’t bother him so that was all good. But I felt uneasy about this thing with his ex-partner being so concerned and controlling about his life. I understand that parents can be concerned about the welfare of their children but 1) we’d only gone out twice and 2) didn’t she trust him to be an adult and make his own decisions? Felt weird. 🚩
He read my blog about my wanting only one quality in a partner: someone who cares about me and said that he cared about me. But, as I explored in my post, what does care really mean in practice?
In this situation care could have looked like saying:
“I’ll bet that didn’t feel good to have my ex-partner viewing all of your Instagram stories after only 2 dates. You shouldn’t have to hold space for issues from my former relationship while trying to see about starting a relationship with me.”
“Are you feeling emotionally unsafe now? What can I do to help you feel more secure?”
“Sorry about that. I’ll talk to her and make sure to resolve my issues with her between the two of us so you aren’t involved and I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“I’ll bet you’re wondering if I’m emotionally available for a new relationship with you moving forward. I’m happy to talk about it.”
“I need to set some new boundaries with her. I haven’t dated anyone since we separated and this is an opportunity for me to practice good communication and boundary setting.”
These things were not said.
I spent an entire week with Jean 1 in early September. I enjoyed our time together a lot but there were a couple things I missed about the men I was not choosing. I missed the brilliant social network of Jean 6. I’m a very social person and I liked that he immediately brought me into his friend groups. I liked how much I naturally liked his friends—they felt like long-lost friends of my own.
I missed the way Can 18 would text me each day when he got off work, “How are you?” This was not an American “How are you?” as a hollow substitute for “hello”. He sincerely wanted to hold space for the range of my feelings that day. I’ve noticed that people in caring professions have this special gift. I missed someone caring sincerely about the how of my heart and soul.
Jean 1 tended to focus more on the what. As a photographer, he has a brilliant sense of what’s visually appealing. His home is something out of a design magazine—perfectly crafted and curated. His photographic work transcends anything I’ve seen of other photographers I’ve known. I admired his eye for beauty, color, texture/feel, and how to put it all together into something well-balanced. I found both his professional work and the home life he currated captivating.
I remember telling my mom and a girlfriend: “I need all three men. I need all the qualities they have. How can one person provide it all?” People tend to say that that’s why we need good friends but the thing is…there’s something about a romantic connection that adds a spark. I’m big on friendship. I have cultivated a close social network of people I love dearly. But romance is…mmm…the stakes are higher. We have to walk on a knife’s edge of intimacy and connection or distance and rejection. It adds electricity.
I know polyamory has become popular in the past several decades. But I’ve never seen it not be an absolute dumpster fire for all involved parties in the end. Much like communism, it’s an interesting ideal in theory but has yet to work in practice.
When I left for Scotland on September 6th I wasn’t feeling sure about whether I wanted to keep moving things forward with Jean 1 but I was enjoying my time with him. He was an amazing cook of healthy, fresh food. We went on a long stroll in the sunshine and admired art. We could talk and talk and talk about interesting and inspiring ideas. We seemed to have equal levels of power and confidence so we could banter with each other with some teasing. I liked how much effort he was putting into seeing me. I felt desired.
Sometimes the teasing went too far and I got my feelings hurt but he was quick to repair which made me feel like this could really work as a relationship. I liked that he had a daily meditation practice and had done some IFS therapy, a modality that has helped me. It’s hard to find men to date who have done some therapy and personal development work.
Scotland
My Schengen Area days were up so I headed to the UK. I dog-sat for 3 different households in 3 weeks: two just outside of Glasgow and one for my friend in Edinburgh.
Jean 1 continued to text me every day.
—
John 21 | Scottish | Early 40s | Bumble
I continued to swipe on Bumble and matched with a cute, witty, and outdoorsy guy, John 21. We arranged a coffee date for when I was back in Edinburgh after my dog-sitting gigs around Glasgow.
—
I conferred with my friends. I told them Jean 1 was pursuing me. Should I go for it? Should I keep dating other people? There was this particular week that Jean 1 had off from work and off from caring for the 11-year-old son he shared with his ex-partner. It was a week between finishing dog-sitting and before meeting my mom and friend LH in Turkey. It was my 40th birthday at the end of the year and mom and LH wanted to do this special trip with me to celebrate. I wanted to show them the country I had fallen in love with over the summer.
I was incredibly anxious about it all. My 40th birthday was fast approaching and I knew I needed to start putting together an emergency plan (in case I didn’t meet a life partner) regarding my dream to have a baby. I had been in contact with fertility clinics in Greece and Spain. The cost to freeze eggs or do in-vitro fertilization (IVF) is a fraction of the cost that it is in the United States. I thought about freezing my eggs. Each year that goes by, our eggs decrease dramatically in quality. At age 39, in any given ovulation, there is about a 1 in 5 chance that the egg is high quality enough for a pregnancy. At age 40 that ratio drops to 1 in 20. Massive difference! The clock was ticking!
I wasn’t sure about the timing of it all. I had wanted to use that week after dog-sitting but before Turkey to go to Greece to freeze my eggs. But it’s a 2-week process.
I didn’t know much about how it all works so I’ll explain:
First, they run a bunch of tests to make sure you’re healthy.
Then they give you two weeks of hormones to stimulate the ovaries for egg harvesting. You have to self-inject yourself with these hormones several times a day.
Then you go in for egg extraction in which you’re put under anesthetics.
It’s quite a process! Even though the clinic in Greece said they could ship the drugs to me in Scotland so I could do egg extraction in that one week between Scotland and Turkey, it just felt like a lot. I wasn’t sure if I was up for injecting myself with hormones and doing an anesthetized procedure.
I called Jean 1 and asked if I could share all this stuff I was feeling anxious about. I put it all out on the table. I really wanted a child. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where we stood. Was I wasting my time with him? Or did we share future goals? He listened and assured me that I wasn’t wasting my time with him, that he was serious about us, and that he’d always wanted another kid.
I checked in with my dear friend AS, a friend who met her soul mate around my present age, had a baby in her 40s, and had been happily married for over 15 years. She shared this text with me:
“We come together with someone in new love, sex, or romance, not half so much because of passion as projection. The experience of passion is real, and it serves a noble cause: pair bonding. No matter how cynical you might be about monogamy, or how dedicated you are to the deconstruction of social norms around coupling, you don’t get to circumvent pair bonding unless your connections are shallow or sociopathic, period. You’re not supposed to opt out of it. It’s a force of nature or god, and we are meant to be beholden to one another, interdependent, parts of a whole; we need each other. Passion ends, sometimes spectacularly in a dramatic break-up, sometimes ordinarily in a transition into commitment or shared domestic life. It ends when our ability to continue projecting our ideals onto the other becomes impossible. When we know them too well to continue to see them as our fantasy. You have a few options when you reach the inevitable point of disillusionment. You can replace one person with another, prolonging a never-ending cycle of fantasy and disillusionment, forever seeking new highs and new lows. Or, you can stay, and see what happens when you learn to love someone for who they truly are, and not what they meant to you before you even met them. Essentially, it’s about learning to love another person instead of unconsciously worshipping yourself.
Relationships are not supposed to make you happy. Content, maybe. But that contentment is a natural consequence of perseverance, and carries a very different connotation than happiness. Happiness is elevated, but contentment is grounded. Happiness is unsustainable, contentment is underlying. “Compatibility” has very little to do with temperament, personality, and lifestyle preferences, and everything to do with capability, power (I’m loosely defining this as conscious self mastery), and intention. If you match your lover in capability, power, and intention, you have what you need to dance with most incongruences and negotiations and weird dramatic flare-ups as they arise. Like all difficult and uncomfortable experiences that force us to annihilate our unhealthy egoism, most of us try to avoid this process of letting go of self obsession. Most of us avoid this process even if we are in a committed relationship, although we can’t really avoid it, and so it shows up like misery and suffering. In this way, misery and suffering in a relationship are a signal that we are not doing our work. It means buckling down, not bailing out.
Whatever we hoped the object of our affection would mean to us while we were actively objectifying them--freedom, creative expression, completion, fulfillment, escape, peace, finality, sexual gratification, etc.-- is what we’ve avoided taking responsibility for in our own lives. And without fail, in a relationship with equal capability, power, and intention, whatever we long for in our partner we are failing to bring to the table ourselves. Just as the person we become in a relationship is unique to that relationship, the way we shape our partners through intimate affiliation is unique to us. And with time, we become “the one,” together. Because we shape shift in accordance to the lessons in greater self mastery that particular person evokes in us (and us in them), we become, with time, more and more their ideal mate, co-creator, wife, husband, love. There cannot be an “illusion of sunk cost fallacy” in a conscious marriage where you do your work. The relationship becomes more valuable with time, period. And you are simply not going to bail with time as you appreciate, consciously, its increasing value.”
There seemed to be a lot of personality differences between me and Jean 1 but I loved this idea of moving beyond narcissism and towards seeing and appreciating others for who they are instead of what about ourselves they reflect back to us.
AS said, “He wants you? He’s stable? He has a good job? You like him? He wants a kid like you do? Why not go for it?”
I decided to delete the dating apps, canceling the date with John 21, to see what would happen if I went all in with Jean 1. I set firm plans for that free week. He would come to meet me in Scotland, a place he’d always wanted to visit.
He got us an Airbnb rental on the Isle of Skye and I worked on our sightseeing itinerary. He arrived and it got off to a rocky start, mainly, I think, because he was recovering from a cold. We had many great moments driving around the island, taking photos of landscapes and castles, and hiking up mountains. A favorite moment was witnessing his confusion as to why the grocery store had wrapped all the fresh fruits and vegetables in plastic. I tried to explain that the reason France is so beloved around the world is precicely because of this unique thing they do with fresh food out in the open in grand outdoor markets or market halls. The rest of us were doing plastic containers. It suddenly seemed especially sad to me, the way it’s done in the UK and USA, after seeing Jean 1’s earnest befuddlement. France has some of the best, highest quality food in the world.
Jean 1 is an amazing cook and made most of our meals. I made cocktails with locally distilled gin. We bickered quite a bit, though, and I was starting to feel quite a bit of tension. On night 5, I brought it up. Couldn’t he feel our disagreements? I didn’t want to be the only one addressing conflicts. When I feel overwhelmed or stressed, as an Enneagram Type 1 personality, I tend to get sharply critical and judgemental. This in turn has the effect of making partners retract and regress themselves, in different ways. I’ve had a few partners who fight back and a few who retreat into their heads but hardly ever one to say, “Hey, is something happening where you’re feeling unsafe?” It’s typically been me to notice that fear has crept in and to slow things down, check-in, apologize, and reset. It’s nice to feel like the work is being shared and that each partner can be a great steward of the other’s fears and insecurities, but I haven’t experienced many partnership moments like that so far.
“I can hear myself getting critical and I’m sure that doesn’t feel good to you. I’m sorry,” I shared. “I can see that it makes you shut down and then I react even more.” Things were much better between us after that and I watched myself and my reactions. But still, I felt worried about being the one to do the majority of the emotional labor. I knew from prior experience that I would quickly feel exhausted.
He and I flew back to Paris where I dropped my things off. I packed a smaller bag, relieved to no longer be schlepping all of my things, and the following morning I flew to Istanbul to meet my mom and LH.
To be continued in Part 4…
Tallies
So, even though Jean 1 and Jean 6 were mentioned in Part 1, I hadn’t met them in real life yet at that time, even though we matched on dating apps.
Nationalities of the men I went on IRL (In Real Life) dates with:
France - II
Hair color of the men I went on IRL dates with (to establish whether I have a “type”):
Gray - I
Med-Dark Brown - I
Brown/Red - 0
Black - 0
Blonde or Light Brown - 0
Red - 0
Did we kiss?
Yes - II
No - 0
How I connected with the men I went on IRL dates:
The League app - I
Bumble app - 0
In the wild (out in real life) - 0
Hinge app - I
OKCupid app - 0
Average age:
45.5 (I was 39 at the time, for reference)
Age range = 44-47
The average age in both Parts 1 and 2 was 36.
Height (I’m 5’10” or 178cm)
A lot taller than me - 0
A bit taller than me - 0
Same height as me - 0
A bit shorter than me - II
Quite a bit shorter - 0
Date asked me questions about myself while on the date:
Asked questions - II
Didn’t ask questions - 0
Date paid for the date:
Paid - II
We split it - 0
I Paid - 0
No costs - N/A
