Finding romance on a Monday night seems too cliché for even the cheesiest of romance novels and in fact that is just what Chiara Forbes thought on a particularly chilly Monday night as she walked into the Hotel Costes. Meeting friends for dinner, she had been quite productive for a weekday (not forgetting once again that it was a Monday) and hadn’t even managed to run home and change: jeans, boots, and the fun but professional top would have to do.
Normally, Chiara found herself to frequent the fashionable bar in the particularly trendy hotel but that evening dining in the backroom was a nice change of scenery. While she hated to call dinner uneventful, dining with some of her close coupled friends always left her a little more drunk than everyone else and curious to see who might be in the bar that night—there had to be one regular who could entertain Chiara before heading home, especially since it was not even midnight yet.
She tentatively made plans with Alex whom she loved to sit at the bar with and laugh at the self-important people who walked down the steps but knew there would be a good chance he might stand her up that night: not that he wasn’t reliable but he hated when she called him half drunk from a bar wanting company. Sliding onto the only open bar stool, Chiara begin chatting with the bartender and accidentally bumped into the guy sitting next to her. They confusedly spoke French and English before settling on English when he mentioned that he had spent a significant amount of time in New York even attending college close to where Chiara grew up. Two years of trendy bar hopping in Paris had taught Chiara one thing: an interesting guy was a rare commodity. As the text messages flowed in from Alex explaining he probably wouldn’t make it, Chiara responded “no problem!” provoking the inevitable phone call “what do you mean it’s ok?” Laughing coyly, Chiara stepped away from the bar to explain she was having fun and Alex snickered: abandoning co-dependency in favor of potential vulnerability was also rare.
The next day, making her way home, Chiara knew she may have just spoiled any future possibilities with this new guy but in typical fashion brushed it off. It had been a Monday and romance never occurred on a Monday. But later that night she received a text from him and couldn’t help but smile when he said he wanted to see her again. A few days later, Chiara spent another fabulous evening with him and she feared the worst: she might actually like this guy. It wasn’t necessarily a problem of being interested but rather a question of emotions. For the next week and half Chiara felt she was riding an emotional roller coaster. The moment he would call or text the adrenaline rush of excitement would get her through the next two days before she heard from him again but by day three, if she hadn’t heard anything, she felt as if she was at the tipping point. The moment you arrive at the top of the coaster right before you plummet can either be screams of excitement or general disappointment.
That is when Chiara realized how vulnerable she was and it was at that moment she thought she needed to destroy it all before her emotions got the better of her. So on one particularly confusing Saturday evening, she fought the urge to call him and tell him whatever irrational thing came to mind, which would guarantee that he would never call her again. And if it hadn’t been for one rational voice, she may have just gone ahead and done it. Not because she wanted to sabotage the new, potential relationship but because she couldn’t allow his moves to dictate her moods. A week of irrational thinking from a normally carefree girl had started to get to her. Instead, she took a step back and realized that if she wanted to make an improvement on her dating record she would simply have to ignore him as a matter of principle. Through the haze of irrationality came one clear thought: you can’t sabotage something that isn’t yours. Sure, it would have been easy to throw her arms up, stomp her feet for attention, and storm off frustrated that she—gasp—actually admitted to herself that she liked a guy and wanted to see him again.
Maybe he sensed it or simply wondered where she had been for the past few days and in reaction asked her out a few days later. Chiara squealed with excitement; Alex rolled his eyes. But the game was not over; it still isn’t over even. Chiara had made it past level one and when she found herself with him again, meeting some of his friends, she realized how trivial yet crucial level one actually was, and couldn’t help but smile.
“How long have you two known each other,” one woman asked in French.
“Depuis quelques semaines,” she responded. For a few weeks seemed more ironic in French she thought to herself as the woman smiled slightly rolling her eyes. Chiara wasn’t sure how to react to it but didn’t respond nevertheless—if she had learned anything from the emotional roller coaster it was that as long as she remained confident it didn’t matter what anyone thought. (Plus, the backless top she was wearing earned her the attention she had wanted to stomp her feet for before.)
What surprised Chiara was how rational she became about the whole situation. He was affectionate, attentive, and didn’t give her the satisfaction of always being there; he didn’t message her five times a day, call her at the same time everyday or make his next move obvious, which was exactly what drove her mad but kept her interested. Chiara knew that the moment he became available was the moment that she would stop responding. She also realized that nothing was holding them together but general curiosity and interest. When she weighed her day-to-day activities against the few nights they had spent together Chiara knew there was not enough information to evaluate, which was exactly why she couldn’t sabotage what wasn’t hers to sabotage. Perhaps that is what the beginning of a new relationship is really about: it is not about experience or cleverness but our own acceptance of the dating rules; if we expect instant gratification (like we expect someone to text us immediately back) then we will be driven to act out that irrational behavior and ultimately be disappointed that it all went wrong with no one but ourselves to blame.
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