Quite a Day

Posted in FranceTagged ,

I don’t usually think through my posts. If they seem stream-of-consciousness to you, that’s because they are, pretty much. This time I’m hoping to think it through enough that I don’t write something I’ll regret.

Afghanistan has just fallen. Yesterday, I think, Kabul was taken so, game over. My theory? I have one, but it’s pretty uninformed, based on a little reading, conversations with friends who served there and my own trips to the Middle East, though never to Afghanistan. So really, more opinion than theory and no point in posting it. But if my barns are suddenly filled with little apartments to handle the new influx of refugees, don’t be surprised.

Instead, let’s talk country house bling: my new rider mower. The old one, after five years of hard service, died. Julien pushed it way beyond its recommended limits but kept it maintained. Eventually, like an old car, it required a repair that would cost almost as much as a new mower, and would still need lots of work in the future, so a new mower it is. Julien has a buddy who soups up old tractor mowers and races them, so, win-win. He gets a new toy and I get a little cash. I hope to find one of these races and tell you all about it.

The new mower was delivered yesterday. The brand came out tops in my online research and this is the new model — not more than the top of my price range and with a new feature that facilitates cleaning. The old one had these handles for steering, which I found rather intimidating. This one, as you see, has a steering wheel. I may start mowing my own lawn, unless I can get Jacques to do it.

Politics, show-and-tell, now for the dirt. I signed up for one of those dating sites: Elite Rencontres, if there are any lurkers out there thinking “How can I meet this wonderful woman?” Elite, that’s your ticket. It’s actually quite interesting. These guys are serious, frankly more serious than am I, and I’m not wading through dozens of posts written by married guys looking for a fling. I’m okay with dating sites; I met Robert and Jean-Yves through them, after all. The guy that I spoke with yesterday, one that I met through a different site which shall remain nameless, gave me a new appreciation for the men that are my friends.

I’m not going to go all Andrew Cuomo, “balance ton porc” on you. You need to be able to make a power play to merit that and with me at least, what gives this guy his power, money, is irrelevant. He wasn’t a sleazeball — well, okay, maybe a bit, but the class version, like the VCs who hang out at a certain Silicon Valley restaurant with upstairs rooms. But the VCs hire the hookers in the bar, so at least the women get a bit of cash for themselves, and this guy didn’t want to pay. Well, maybe he’d put the drinks on his tab.

So it was basically a job interview. And, having been through a few of those before, I knew to listen for clues regarding what might be in this job for me. Spoiler: it wasn’t much.

He inherited his father’s house and was renovating it. He let his dad live in the crumbly old pile just as it was. Now that it was his house, time to fix things up. Maybe Dad said no thanks to any improvements, but still. Hmm. Then, first question, mind you, would I be willing to sell up and move to Normandy, where the weather is awful but I guess the cider is pretty good. Really, give up my whole life? I’ve done it before and would do it again for the right reason, but was he offering a right reason? Ah, no, not really.

Marriage, with all its legal protections, would be out. That was the second thing he brought up. The last three guys died on me, so believe me, I think a lot about what happens when it’s all over. Robert and Jean-Yves, each in his own way, made sure I was protected. This guy, nope, apparently not what he has in mind.

So I’m thinking deal-breaker right there, let’s see what else he has to say. Maybe he can salvage things. I think you get the drift: he didn’t. I think he had a list of questions; he kept looking down, then looking up and asking a pretty standard job-interview-type question. This deal was going to be on his terms, plain and simple. Her terms, whoever she may be, were irrelevant. He wanted someone pretty enough to impress his friends, good company, good in bed. End of story. To his credit, he was quite open about it. If he had any deeper connection in mind, he gave no hint of it. He loves his kids but the women in his life, maybe not so much.

He’ll find what he’s looking for. There is surely some very pretty, more-or-less age-appropriate actress, maybe — no disrespect to actresses, just saying they know how to present themselves to the public, a trait I do not have at all and which I sometimes wish I did — barely making ends meet who will go for it. I’ve been poor. I never took the deal but I get it. Or maybe someone who is doing fine, thanks, but wouldn’t mind a presentable companion, so more a social than an emotional connection. Whatever. I hope it lasts and I wish them both well.

Me? I had friends coming to dinner and bolognese sauce simmering. I sent off a couple of messages to guys in Affiny — the “lots of fish in the sea” gesture — and set the table.

Time to shake it off, I guess. Dinner was terrific, the best antidote. Piano lesson tonight. Other friends are coming this weekend. Music festival this weekend. Beach house with another group of friends next week. Then more music festival. A pretty busy few weeks after that. I have other things to do.

17 thoughts on “Quite a Day”

  1. Lynn…..you always make me smile AND laugh out loud. This guy sounds like a frog, not a prince. I’d prefer to fall in love with that snazzy red mower!

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    1. Yeah, well, that’s one species of frog that I think a lot of us wish would go extinct. The mower is pretty seductive in its own way, though, don’t you think?😏

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    1. I can see I’ll have to do a Mower Report. Once it gets some mileage on it I’ll be able to tell you whether it’s any nicer. For sure, with that engine, it’s going to be warmer.

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  3. A mower report is certainly required….our used to live in the coach house which meant hurtling out into the road and running down to the gates further along…not so bad that way, but the return meant hurtling out into a blind bend, so you needed a scout. And people say that life in the country is dull….

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  4. I don’t understand that man. You have so much to offer! Beauty, brilliance, talent and accomplishments aside, did you tell him that you had a brand new lawn mower? Not only that, but you also had insider access to clandestine lawn mower races? Did you tell him that? How could he not be instantly smitten? Had you informed him of these details, I’m sure he would have overlooked that slight whiff of gin and peanut butter, Nah, nah, nah…just kidding. We all know you don’t like peanut butter. Anyway, there are indeed more “poisson dans la mer” as they say in Bakersfield. That’s a mighty fine riding mower and the terrier looks great surveying his terroir. I would recommend a seat belt but that would lead us to a discussion of Jacques straps and we cannot handle that level of punning without copious quantities of alcohol.

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    1. I think he’s the kind of guy who would put a Porsche engine in his racing lawnmower. Anything to win. And you have to admit, it would be great fun to ride. Apart from that and by all means, drink up. The more puns the merrier.

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      1. Having been off the market so to speak for about 41/2 decades I am not especially au fait with the role of social media in launching relationships. So I looked up Affini whilst pounding the steps of the Stairmaster at the gym. I made a tragic error however in not using “incognito mode” and now my Google feed is chock a block full of messages like “Sexy Rancho Cucamonga Singles Want to Meet You, Tom!!!” I showed my mail box to the Alpha Japanese Female who almost wet herself laughing. She allowed as how I was indeed the GOAT. I asked “Greatest Of All Time?” and she said no, just an old goat who deserves to be in horny jail. I won’t forget this, Lynn.

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        1. I like the gender-neutral aspect of that advertising. Sexy single what? Men, women, llamas? Whatever your thing is, your brain will fill in the blank. How a llama would do post, though, that’s another question.

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      1. Oh, no-o-o-o, the worst pickup lines ever. I had to listen to it twice, to be sure I got all the words. How did they keep a straight face while they were singing it?

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        1. it’s a British thing….the crowd are extracting the urine …but you are being paid. The band is laughing last.
          And probably more so now that the lovies are fleeing London for the sticks…suddenly cider has becoe worthy of tastings and criticisms…flights of cider, no less….discussed in The Guardian…No mention, however of Dublin Dynamite…half rough cider and half Iriish whiskey….influencers were much too young to have experienced it…and no one would be paying them to promote it.

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  5. How did I miss this? Do you not tag posts so they appear in the wordpress reader?
    I saw the ad for Elite Rencontres on the television and thought wow, that’s very upfront. How’s your selection going? Don’t move north, beautiful properties but a very sad sky.

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    1. Hi. Yes, I was wondering where you were. Not that you’d have appeared in my matches, of course, but still. I do tag my posts and I get a lot of referrals from that, so I don’t know.

      Anyway, I haven’t seen any ads. I can tell you that the guys range from dropouts to Doctorats. Elite manages all this reasonably well. Every morning they send me an email with three guys who might interest me. It’s kind of hard to tell, as they base it mainly on similarities of personality, plus some criteria that you give them. However if you visit a guy’s profile you can see his interests, whether he smokes, level of education, a few other things. Guys lie like crazy, but it’s a start and that’s not Elite’s fault.

      If I go to my own page I can see all the guys that might be good matches. I can message them or just send a “smile,” basically just a way to get their attention. I can check messages. I can report dubious messages and Elite is great about following up. I also get 20 guys each day that Elite thinks will not be a good match but hey, who are they to judge?

      It’s going well. I get a few duds, a few pleasant conversations that stopped right there, and a few where the guys — an artist and a couple of university professors– are interested in, well, moving things to the next level. Of that last group, I haven’t decided.I was never a person who dated, so I’m pleased and surprised by what, for me, is a lot of attention. And honestly, they’re all intelligent, accomplished, interesting guys. The old “nurse or purse” saw doesn’t apply.

      My recommendation? Women of a certain age and level of education should go for it. I am told there are a lot of nurses and housewives who sign up. I don’t know how they do but the guys who are interested in me are not interested in them, so I can’t say. At least intermediate French is important, though my two front-runners speak elegant English. Worst case, it’s a fascinating exercise in cultural anthropology.

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        1. Yeah, auditioning and being auditioned. That guy that I so summarily dumped took it a bit too far, but I understand the impulse. I tend to shift it, though, from audition/interview to simply a conversation. It’s like chatting with a stranger at a dinner party.

          When I was 22, I would have taken it very personally. Then somewhere, in some career coaching seminar, I was introduced to the concept of simply being a bad fit for the job. It depersonalized the whole interview experience quite effectively, at least for me. Then when I was selling the California house, the realtor shook off a failed sale by simply saying, “That’s not our buyer.” Didn’t work, move on: no big deal.

          So that’s basically how I approach this. The “cultural anthropology” comment is not an accident. I’m finding out a lot about people on, so far, a fairly impersonal and definitely safe level. Just in that general sense, it’s interesting. Because of the filters, I don’t get, for example, the geezers who think a 20-something will find them hot stuff. I know in advance that I have gotten through the first sorting process. If someone is weird, they are easy to block. If they are not, we make time to see each other. It’s just lunch, right? Maybe they are interesting but there is no chemistry. It happens. You part as friends. So now I have a wider circle of friends, or at least a sense that I’m not isolated.

          So you’re not putting yourself on the line the way you do if you meet people in person. You know in advance whether they are serious; people are generally pretty transparent. You know they more or less share your interests and more or less find you attractive. If it doesn’t go much farther than that, let’s call it a bad fit. I wouldn’t say, “That’s not my buyer,” not in this context. lol. I think one of the guys I’m talking to now will work out — I have read that most people find someone within a month or so — but if not, the attention is flattering and now that I’m older and somewhat thicker-skinned, I could do this for a while.

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