Now that you're actually reading this post, I'll need to clarify, because as we all know, word choice matters: young French guy, non-creepy French guy, sweet conversation.
Armed with that vocabulary, I have a story to tell. Two stories, actually.
When I first came to Nancy--my first day here, in fact-- I got stuck talking to some old French dude. It wasn't a bad conversation--I did mostly listening because my french wasn't that great (ok, almost non-existent) and I was just pleased that someone actually wanted to talk with me. Until he wanted to make it a regular thing. *shudder*
Brave as I may sound, I have only just now developed the courage (and vocabulary) to venture back into that park.
I've had other experiences since then to improve my opinion of Frenchmen (like the terribly awesome 18-30 young adult Bible study that I found), but the one from this week takes the cake.
For some reason, my residence decided that they needed to exterminate all the non-existent bed bugs--and so all of the assistants from my building were left out in the cold (yes, it is very cold with ice and snow right now!) while we waited for the poison to clear. I, luckily, found the apartment of the assistants in the other building and we hung out for a while. One of them had a conversation exchange (one hour English, one hour French) with some French guy who had responded to her internet ad, and since she hadn't ever met him before and didn't want to get stuck with a creep I decided to tag along. I totally understand the creep thing, as do most of the other female assistants by now.
Perhaps this would go over better in fairytale form:
Once upon a time there were two bees who went out for dew drops with a dragonfly. Neither of the bee had met the dragonfly before, so it was best that the littlest bee went along for good company. As it turned out, the dragonfly was not as much of a dragon as they had pictured him to be--in fact, he was rather nice and pleasant.
They flew around the garden and came to rest by the pond in the center of the garden to sip dew drops and practice speaking. The dragonfly was very impressive in his speaking abilities, as well as the other bee; so much so that the littlest bee began to doubt her abilities when it came time to switch languages she said she would just sit and listen... which was the farthest thing from what actually occurred. She got so involved the conversation that she almost didn't notice how much the dragonfly was smiling at her and inching closer across the lilypad. The other bee did notice, and stopped participating in the conversation altogether; when it was time to go, she discretely tapped the littlest bee on the wing, which was immediately noticed by the dragonfly, who got up to pay for the dew drops before anyone could protest.
The other bee and the dragonfly had had an agreement to go to the pond every week for a similar exchange, but when it came time to decide the specifics for next week, he didn't ask her; he asked the littlest bee. By then she was more acutely aware of his apparent happiness in talking to her, she didn't quite know what to do without offending the other bee (whose rendez-vous it was in the first place). In the end, they agreed to meet in the evening sometimes so the littlest bee wouldn't have to miss her other obligations that she normally had at that time (even though the littlest bee hadn't--and still doesn't have--any intention of coming back to the conversations).
And the moral of the story is: don't be so wrapped up in have a decent and intelligent and non-creepy conversation that it takes the other bee to tell you on the way home how much a dragonfly likes you!
That, my friends, is how it really happened--the "happily ever after"is not how they lived, but rather how the littlest bee had her mind changed about dragonflies in general.
The end :)
Life as a Teaching Assistant in France
