Back in Americaland mais tu me manques...
It's really too bad I haven't had time to update since April, because now I have no idea how to possibly capture the past month or so in words. Not that I would have been able to anyway...but still, I would have liked to try, because it was amazing, sad, and strange, and the end of the best four and a half months of my life so far. I think I'm gonna try cover a few things though. I'll start with what was probably my favorite thing about my study abroad experience; le copain.
I don't remember exactly when we met, but it was basically through Laurie, a French girl my friend Hilary had met at parenage. The first night we met her and two of her friends at a bar, they seemed a little uncomfortable and very quiet, and left just a few minutes after coming down from the bar to meet us. The next night, Hilary asked if she should tell Laurie to come meet us in another bar...thank god we said yes, because she brought a menagerie of French people with her, including Clément. I knew they were fun when they walked in the door and one girl was already having noticeable balance issues. Anyway, the first time I met him, he said something like "oh pleased to meet you, asshole!" After that night, we started going out with them regularly. I thought Clément was pretty damn funny right away...and then I started thinking he was hot. I tried to subtly hit on him once even though I really didn't think he was interested in guys (facebook, oh how it lies), sitting close to him the entire night, almost putting my arm around him...that was a few nights before I wrote this entry. That continued for a while, until I got a message from him one night that said something like "hey mon chou, ça vous dit se retrouver à 22h-22h30 à St. Anne?" I asked my host mom if there was always an amorous connotation to "chou" and she responded with "hm, yep, that probably means she likes you". I told her a guy sent it and she told me to watch out, haha.
After the bars closed later that night, Clément, Jarno, Hilary and myself went back to my place and wrestled around, ate cereal, played with clementines, and fell asleep on my (very large) bed. Hilary and Jarno left kinda early the next morning leaving Clément and I alone together. I then spent a confused 20 minutes trying to inch closer and figure out if I should a) make a move or b) not make a move because it'd be super awkward if he was straight...which I still assumed he was. Well, he got up to get a drink, laid back down, and put his arm around me (which was amazing) aaand that was basically the start of our relationship. Apparently, he'd told me he was bi the night before, but I hadn't remembered because I'd been too drunk...sooo stupid. The next two days I was busy frantically planning my haphazard two week trip to the Netherlands, but we went to l'Emblème the night before I left...and my apartment later, which was awesome and meant I was pretty tired when I woke up at 5am to catch my train. I ended up really not liking the people I went with, and missing him/Rennes a lot of the time. Just reading his texts would make me hard. Actually, pretty much anything he did made me hard, including speaking English (which he didn't do often) because he can write it pretty well but his accent is, well, French ;)
It seems like I've always had trouble finding anything other than slightly to very effeminate gay dudes in the US in terms of romantic possibilities. Or even just as friends. I love my flaming queens, but that's not the type of guy I am, and it's not the type of guy I'm attracted to. In France however, finding attractive masculine bi/gay dudes was like shooting fish in a barrel. I didn't even have to do anything because they just seemed to find me. Clément is no different, and it rocked having a boyfriend like that. For this reason, I think it's safe to say he's probably the first guy I've ever had real feelings for. Sometimes I'd wonder if jumping into a relationship was a bad idea, sometimes I'd wonder if I was in love, having little firsthand knowledge of either of those words. But whenever I was with him, whenever I'd feel his hand on my leg at the bar or kiss him at our usual meeting place before going out...all that pondering would dissolve and I'd just feel happy. Funny how that works. And he's hilarious (and lacks inhibitions when it comes to anything vulgar, just my type!), so that made every soirée just that much more entertaining. I think one of my favorite days in Rennes was when we slept at his friends house, ate lunch with his mom the next day, and then just hung out in a park for a few hours, laying in the grass and talking. Oh and btw, sex with someone you actually care about = waaay better. What a discovery, I know.
The last week and change in Rennes was not pretty...it was odd seeing people I'd grown close to in only a few months just drop off the face of the earth, and I got pretty emotional thinking about my own departure an innumerable amount of times. I spent my last two nights in Rennes at Clément's place, and just before I gave my host mom her key back, she finally asked me something about him. I'd been wanting to tell her more about him for a while, and I couldn't even say more than a few words because I felt myself choking up thinking about leaving. In stark contrast to saying goodbye to my host family, which was superficial and somewhat relieving, saying goodbye to him was more, oh, I don't know, traumatic. When I got on the TGV and left for Paris, I think I cried more than I ever have before. And I don't cry. The last time was at my uncle's funeral when I was 16!!! I could barely wave goodbye from inside the train. My whole body felt tingly and prickly, especially on my left side...what the hell, heartattack? It was so damn odd. I'd already been thinking about how there was a lot I never got the chance to say and lot we never did together, but it just hit me all at once again, and I was overwhelmed. I felt like I was being physically torn away, like there hadn't been enough time, like it juuust wasn't fair. That train ride sucked, and the two days I spent in Paris before I left Europe weren't much better thanks to crappy weather, myself being deprimé'd, and irritating friend/couchsurfer issues.
Before I left Rennes, I bought a fake Rue de la Soif sign at a poster store. Bet purchase ever? Possibly. It's pretty sturdy and has a postcard-esque space on the back. Rue de la Soif, which means "street of thirst" was the bar-rich center of our social lives in Rennes, and the very name brings up sooo many memories of laughter, drunken escapades, random encounters with awesome (and not so awesome) French people. And that's the kind of shit I live for! It was also where I met Clément, and basically all of my French friends. Anyway, the morning I left, he wrote a brief letter on the back of this sign and put a little picture of himself where the stamp should go...how cute is that?! He also wrote "je t'aime" on it (j'adore qu'il a fait ça)...and I definitely remember the first time he said that. Without a doubt, it's my favorite souvenir. Yeah, that thing is staying with me forever. I had an iron grip on the bag containing it the entire time in the City of Lights.
I realized when I came to Europe I started to forget about the people who didn't really matter to me in the states, and to some degree even those who did. I was freaking out thinking the same was going to happen to the people and places I'd discovered in France. I'd say it's inevitable, but then again, I always felt like things were missing from my life in the states and I think I found a good number of them in France, so I'm guessing I'll be going back when the money is there. He says he wants to come visit the United States sometime soon, so who knows. There are a lot of students who had amazing experiences with their host families, but I definitely did not. However, les amis français were pretty damn fun, and meeting my first boyfriend in a foreign country was just génial. Considering what I wanted out of this past semester (and that was to learn colloquial French, rake in the new experiences, and bang European men), I'm more than happy with how it went. Not gonna lie though, this summer I'm reeeally gonna miss seeing his cute lil smile on a regular basis and sneaking him into my room all the time!
*Clémbite, si tu lis cet article de journal, salope, j'étais déjà en train de l'écrire ici, mais c'est pas quelque'chose façile à faire...et en plus, je pense que mon anglais est un peu pire maintenant, hooray! Peut-être c'est ton tour d'écrire un article de MOI dans ton livejournal??? Sinon, tu es obligé de m'envoyer photos de ton cul, j'suis excité et c'est ta faute toujours. Je t'aime mon chou!*
I don't remember exactly when we met, but it was basically through Laurie, a French girl my friend Hilary had met at parenage. The first night we met her and two of her friends at a bar, they seemed a little uncomfortable and very quiet, and left just a few minutes after coming down from the bar to meet us. The next night, Hilary asked if she should tell Laurie to come meet us in another bar...thank god we said yes, because she brought a menagerie of French people with her, including Clément. I knew they were fun when they walked in the door and one girl was already having noticeable balance issues. Anyway, the first time I met him, he said something like "oh pleased to meet you, asshole!" After that night, we started going out with them regularly. I thought Clément was pretty damn funny right away...and then I started thinking he was hot. I tried to subtly hit on him once even though I really didn't think he was interested in guys (facebook, oh how it lies), sitting close to him the entire night, almost putting my arm around him...that was a few nights before I wrote this entry. That continued for a while, until I got a message from him one night that said something like "hey mon chou, ça vous dit se retrouver à 22h-22h30 à St. Anne?" I asked my host mom if there was always an amorous connotation to "chou" and she responded with "hm, yep, that probably means she likes you". I told her a guy sent it and she told me to watch out, haha.
After the bars closed later that night, Clément, Jarno, Hilary and myself went back to my place and wrestled around, ate cereal, played with clementines, and fell asleep on my (very large) bed. Hilary and Jarno left kinda early the next morning leaving Clément and I alone together. I then spent a confused 20 minutes trying to inch closer and figure out if I should a) make a move or b) not make a move because it'd be super awkward if he was straight...which I still assumed he was. Well, he got up to get a drink, laid back down, and put his arm around me (which was amazing) aaand that was basically the start of our relationship. Apparently, he'd told me he was bi the night before, but I hadn't remembered because I'd been too drunk...sooo stupid. The next two days I was busy frantically planning my haphazard two week trip to the Netherlands, but we went to l'Emblème the night before I left...and my apartment later, which was awesome and meant I was pretty tired when I woke up at 5am to catch my train. I ended up really not liking the people I went with, and missing him/Rennes a lot of the time. Just reading his texts would make me hard. Actually, pretty much anything he did made me hard, including speaking English (which he didn't do often) because he can write it pretty well but his accent is, well, French ;)
It seems like I've always had trouble finding anything other than slightly to very effeminate gay dudes in the US in terms of romantic possibilities. Or even just as friends. I love my flaming queens, but that's not the type of guy I am, and it's not the type of guy I'm attracted to. In France however, finding attractive masculine bi/gay dudes was like shooting fish in a barrel. I didn't even have to do anything because they just seemed to find me. Clément is no different, and it rocked having a boyfriend like that. For this reason, I think it's safe to say he's probably the first guy I've ever had real feelings for. Sometimes I'd wonder if jumping into a relationship was a bad idea, sometimes I'd wonder if I was in love, having little firsthand knowledge of either of those words. But whenever I was with him, whenever I'd feel his hand on my leg at the bar or kiss him at our usual meeting place before going out...all that pondering would dissolve and I'd just feel happy. Funny how that works. And he's hilarious (and lacks inhibitions when it comes to anything vulgar, just my type!), so that made every soirée just that much more entertaining. I think one of my favorite days in Rennes was when we slept at his friends house, ate lunch with his mom the next day, and then just hung out in a park for a few hours, laying in the grass and talking. Oh and btw, sex with someone you actually care about = waaay better. What a discovery, I know.
The last week and change in Rennes was not pretty...it was odd seeing people I'd grown close to in only a few months just drop off the face of the earth, and I got pretty emotional thinking about my own departure an innumerable amount of times. I spent my last two nights in Rennes at Clément's place, and just before I gave my host mom her key back, she finally asked me something about him. I'd been wanting to tell her more about him for a while, and I couldn't even say more than a few words because I felt myself choking up thinking about leaving. In stark contrast to saying goodbye to my host family, which was superficial and somewhat relieving, saying goodbye to him was more, oh, I don't know, traumatic. When I got on the TGV and left for Paris, I think I cried more than I ever have before. And I don't cry. The last time was at my uncle's funeral when I was 16!!! I could barely wave goodbye from inside the train. My whole body felt tingly and prickly, especially on my left side...what the hell, heartattack? It was so damn odd. I'd already been thinking about how there was a lot I never got the chance to say and lot we never did together, but it just hit me all at once again, and I was overwhelmed. I felt like I was being physically torn away, like there hadn't been enough time, like it juuust wasn't fair. That train ride sucked, and the two days I spent in Paris before I left Europe weren't much better thanks to crappy weather, myself being deprimé'd, and irritating friend/couchsurfer issues.
Before I left Rennes, I bought a fake Rue de la Soif sign at a poster store. Bet purchase ever? Possibly. It's pretty sturdy and has a postcard-esque space on the back. Rue de la Soif, which means "street of thirst" was the bar-rich center of our social lives in Rennes, and the very name brings up sooo many memories of laughter, drunken escapades, random encounters with awesome (and not so awesome) French people. And that's the kind of shit I live for! It was also where I met Clément, and basically all of my French friends. Anyway, the morning I left, he wrote a brief letter on the back of this sign and put a little picture of himself where the stamp should go...how cute is that?! He also wrote "je t'aime" on it (j'adore qu'il a fait ça)...and I definitely remember the first time he said that. Without a doubt, it's my favorite souvenir. Yeah, that thing is staying with me forever. I had an iron grip on the bag containing it the entire time in the City of Lights.
I realized when I came to Europe I started to forget about the people who didn't really matter to me in the states, and to some degree even those who did. I was freaking out thinking the same was going to happen to the people and places I'd discovered in France. I'd say it's inevitable, but then again, I always felt like things were missing from my life in the states and I think I found a good number of them in France, so I'm guessing I'll be going back when the money is there. He says he wants to come visit the United States sometime soon, so who knows. There are a lot of students who had amazing experiences with their host families, but I definitely did not. However, les amis français were pretty damn fun, and meeting my first boyfriend in a foreign country was just génial. Considering what I wanted out of this past semester (and that was to learn colloquial French, rake in the new experiences, and bang European men), I'm more than happy with how it went. Not gonna lie though, this summer I'm reeeally gonna miss seeing his cute lil smile on a regular basis and sneaking him into my room all the time!
*Clémbite, si tu lis cet article de journal, salope, j'étais déjà en train de l'écrire ici, mais c'est pas quelque'chose façile à faire...et en plus, je pense que mon anglais est un peu pire maintenant, hooray! Peut-être c'est ton tour d'écrire un article de MOI dans ton livejournal??? Sinon, tu es obligé de m'envoyer photos de ton cul, j'suis excité et c'est ta faute toujours. Je t'aime mon chou!*