For my birthday, Sébastien had given me a postcard with three destinations in France to choose to go on a weekend away with him. The choices were a going to the sea during off-season in Nice, a weekend in the vineyards in Burgundy or a tour through the châteaus in Loire. Wanting to go somewhere new and since I had gone to Nice with Monsieur Flâneur that was crossed out, I also had gone to Burgundy with my first Paris boyfriend Lucien. Lucien who used to tell me to run around the Eiffel Tower to loose my "hips and thighs fats" and that he thought I grazed too much during the day because I eat a 3:00 goûter before a 9pm. Goûter is a French word, no? So Loire Valley it is!
The last time I went on a vacation with a new boyfriend, it didn't go as well as I had imagined and it ended up being less than picture perfect. It was about a month into my relationship with Monsieur Flâneur and he had invited me to go to Nice with him for a week. The relationship was new, it was summer in France, Paris was a ghost town and I was in love. I couldn't find a reason not to go even if I tried. I was finally going to live out my fantasy and be the star of a Serge Gainsbourg song; Sea, Sex and Sun. Famous last words.
The story is a drop long but for my girls nursing a broken heart, I urge you to read on and for the rest, enjoy the worst vacation horror story in the South of France.
The vacation already started off rocky when MF said he would be at my apartment at 4pm to embark on a 12 hour road trip to the French Riviera. Most Parisians fly to Nice but his fear of small planes and his inability to refrain from smoking for more than one hour which cancelled out the TGV, left us with no other option than to drive. He showed up at 9pm and off to the Mediterranean we went. The drive down got exhausting somewhere after Lyon as we were only on hour 7 on the dark autoroute with its American-style rest stops that snatched away the glamour I had created in my mind of driving through the countrysides of France.
We arrived in Nice at around 8am the following day and it was pouring rain. We let ourselves into our vacation rental, a lovely three bedroom apartment equipped with a full kitchen, dining room, living room and balcony filled with flowers in colors of magenta, rose and violet. It was perfect. I had made the bed for us to sleep in for the day as we had been driving for hours and it was raining, so there was no point in trying to recover the day. Just as we were settled in after our shower and I was putting out some viennoiserie to eat before nestling in when the doorbell rang. It was MF's friends from the neighborhood whom he hasn't seen in over a year. 'Ok', I said to myself. 'I'll make some coffee and perk up because these are his friends from when he used to vacation here as a child and would hate it if I was deprived of time with Kitty or Dr. Becky after not seeing them for over a year.' I did my best to follow the conversation with my sleep deprivation and their thick Niçoise accents which have different inflections than the Parisian accent that at the time, I was only just starting to understand.
After coffee which turned into lunch which turned into 3 bottles of Rosé and them sharing funny stories with me about their summers spent on the beach, I was wiped out and secretly wanted them to leave so I could just take a cat nap. My secret wish had been granted and just as they were leaving, coming up the hallway stairs was MF's family. His brother, his Catalan girlfriend, his mother and his father. MF greeted them as if we were in Paris and they were just stopping by, 12 hours out of the way. This wasn't a coincidence, this was planned and MF had just told me that they were vacationing with us. Now the other two bedrooms had made more sense. He swore up and down that he told me but while my French at the time may have been shaky, I surely would have understood "Ma famille vient". Ok. Not that I didn't like his family, but after only a month of dating, a vacation with the family speaking your newly acquired second language can be overwhelming to say the fucking very least. Essentially, I was on vacation with a bunch of strangers who I wanted to like me. No pressure. I bucked up and said to myself 'I'm tough, I can do this, I'm Italian, we invented the art of breaking down boundaries and comfort zones' I was determined to enjoy myself. I was armed with my Becherelle should I come face to face with a conjugation crisis now that his parents were there and the formal vous would need to be spoken.
MF ignoring my request to sleep, had planned for us to go to a discotheque that night after his female friend Caroline who also happened to be in Nice came over with more Rosé to bitch about her on and off relationship with her emotionally abusive boyfriend. Caroline who is in her late-40's had some kind of power over MF where I couldn't say anything slightly contrary to her and had to stay in her good graces, so I feigned interest in her love life and drama to come across as the cool girlfriend even though I wanted her to leave for more reasons than to just sleep. Why didn't I just go in the other room and sleep? Because MF's mother took the sheets off our bed to be washed, leaving an unwelcoming old and used mattress. I looked dead and everyone kept joking how tired and awful I looked. Ha. Ha. Any good boyfriend would say 'Hey, I think my girlfriend is tired. We're going to turn in for the night.' but no, I had to plead with him to not go out dancing which turned into a small fight but since because he, himself was tired, he cancelled. Thanks.
The following morning, it was bright and sunny and blowing off the events from the day before to exhaustion, we happily went to meet a girlfriend of mine that I knew from Paris and who had moved down to Monaco for lunch. I felt like France was becoming my home because on our little vacation, I too had people to see and was proud to bring MF with me to meet one of my friends. The lunch didn't turn out at all how I expected. MF and 'my friend' were flirting the entire time while I felt like a third wheel intruding on their date. This lasted for 4 painful hours where they didn't speak to me, only every so often to explain something slower because I didn't understand 'fast French'. Fuck. You. I was boiling mad. 'My friend' wasted no time in adding him on facebook an hour after we parted from the lunch from hell. At the time, I wasn't even friends with him on facebook. Needless to say, I do not speak to this pétasse anymore.
It didn't stop there. Oh no. On top of him not telling me that his entire family was coming to Nice, he also didn't tell me that his most annoying friends from Paris were also vacationing in Nice this week. The following day, we went to have lunch with his other female friend, Nicole who I tried my very best to tolerate. This was the girl who would say snarky, sly things to me in English so MF wouldn't understand. Goodies like "You don't have to be jealous of me. MF doesn't like girls with large breasts." or "Make sure to keep him happy otherwise he will always have me to fill his emotional void. Before you, we used to talk on the phone for like 5 hours a day." Really bitch? Unlike the 2 hours a day now while I sit there pretending to be at ease with the fact that my boyfriend would rather giggle and gossip with another woman on the phone than talk to me?
We met her at a café on the beach where I swear she purposefully left her bath suit top off a little longer than deemed appropriate. Having small talk for 45 minutes with her bare breasts jiggling in our eye sight made me uncomfortable and I didn't know where to look. For the record, I'm not prude, I sunbathe topless too but if a guy friend of mine and his girlfriend are coming to meet me, I'm not going to sit there and nonchalantly sip on mojitos while purposefully letting the glass rub up against my bare chest allowing the condensation to drip off my nipples. Call me old-fashioned. To give them time alone and to rise above her catty games, I left them at the beach café to catch up while I went to get a blow out at a nearby salon. The plan was to meet them at the brasserie in town two hours later which should have been enough time for them to catch up. Allez.
I arrived at the brasserie feeling pretty and refreshed with my thick curly brown hair blown out straight with a slight beach wave. Since they hadn't arrived yet, I ordered a coffee and chatted with the barman who had been serving us all week. MF and Nicole arrived, MF couldn't resist commenting that he preferred my hair curly which I brushed off because I was buzzed off the fact that Nicole was leaving soon. She was going back to see her boyfriend whom by the way, I never met. Heard a lot about. But never met. My buzz came to screeching halt when MF ordered "Un café pour ma chérie, s'il vous plait!". The server who certainly knew we were together was confused, who was chérie? Certainly not me in this context, I for one was already drinking a café. The barman looked at me and then at Nicole who looked satisfied as if she was a cat who just pissed on her territory and said "C'est pour moi." A coffee for my sweetheart?! My baby? My darling? I know in France this word is used more loosely than it is in The States but on top of everything that was happening, I was reaching my fucking limit.
We got back to the house and 'Chérie' came too where I wasn't the warmest. I was done with her. He then told me he was driving her back to her hotel. En plus. "How did she get here?" I asked loosing my patience at this point. "And where is her boyfriend?" It was only 5pm, the sun was out, she had gotten to the beach on her very own and was fed up with lending my boyfriend out. 'Oblivious' to my aggravation, he left me in the apartment alone. His brother and girlfriend were taking a sieste, as was the dad who was sleeping on the couch in his underwear and his mother was out grocery shopping. I sat on the bed in our room and tried to read a book but just looked out on to the balcony at the waving palm trees wondering if I was being too sensitive or if he was being completely inappropriate this week. I later found out that 'Chérie' took the car ride as an opportunity to tell MF her 'concerns' about me. "Elle n'est pas normal. Excuse-moi mais..." I'm not normal?! I'm not normal because I don't want my new boyfriend calling another woman baby in front of me, because I don't want to be called dramatic when I am exhausted after driving for 12 hours over night, because I don't like to be ignored at a lunch of 3 people, because I don't want my boyfriend flirting with my friends in front of me and because I don't want to be left in an apartment alone on 'our' vacation while she feeds him bullshit on how not normal I am. Again, where was this girl's boyfriend?
MF came back 3 hours later where I was not in high spirits and quietly having dinner with his family. 3 hours? Where was her hotel? Italy? I was pissed, he knew and he loved it. It took me a long time to realize that he is so insecure that he needs a fanclub of females vying for his attention to make him feel worthy. The same reason why after we broke up and I didn't cause a scene upset him where he'd show up at my house almost forcing me into showing emotion. He only feels loved if there is some excitement and drama surrounding him.
To wrap this annoying story up, a day after getting back from Nice, I jumped on to the next flight to New York and spent time with Kitty, Dr. Becky and my mother who all thought what happened in Nice wasn't right. But I was in love and defended him and I accused myself of being wrong, overly sensitive and dramatic. "Why does everything have to be your fault?" I remember Aunt Terry asking me, "He wasn't very nice to you in Nice." Very cute. I used to let everything be my fault because I could control me much better than I could control him and if its my fault than I can change the situation and make myself 'better'. I thought if I was nicer, more understanding, happier that he would stop doing these things.
I have all the faith in the world that none of these stupid things will happen this weekend in Loire with Sébastien. I have received some e-mails and comments from girls wanting to move to France but are scared because of my stories and I urge you to please follow what you want to do and come to France. Just don't date Monsieur Flaneur, that's all.
