So many men so little to talk about

Being single and 40-something, I have finally (and thankfully) moved beyond the stage of life where my relatives feel the need to ask when I’m going to meet someone nice, get married and start a family. Mostly because I think they’ve given me up as a lost cause in that department.

It’s true: I’m not interested in having a family at this time in my life. And because I’m not interested in doing that, marriage now feels optional. Don’t get me wrong, I think marriage could be wonderful with the right man, but given current divorce rates it doesn’t exactly guarantee a lifelong commitment.

That being said, I WOULD like to have a really good man in my life: a trusted partner, best friend and lover all rolled into one. And it’s been FAR too long since I had one of those.

I won’t bore you with the details of why it has been almost a decade since I’ve been involved in a relationship with anyone special, but suffice to say a bad breakup was the catalyst for the dating gap, followed by the decision to put all my energy into starting and growing a business. Being self-employed is stressful, and it gave me an excuse to put my love life on the back burner.

But going without romance for nearly 10 years, that’s insane. So as part of being in Paris, I’m making it a priority to focus on my personal life again. It’s time to put myself back “out there” in the dating pool. The good news is: I’m diving back into that pool in a country where men don’t necessarily view a maturing woman as the one they trade in for a younger model. In France, being “a woman of a certain age” might even work to my advantage. The bad news is: how do I meet people, date and fall in love when I don’t speak the language well?

I’ve done Internet dating before, and with some success. An early fan of online personal ads, getting to know someone online was fun and easy for me, and seemed a better alternative than hanging out in bars. In fact, I met my last boyfriend online, and it was love at first sight for both of us despite the fact that after a year or so it kind of fizzled out. I know several people who met their husbands or life partners through the ‘Net.

So, it seemed like a good idea to try web dating again, to see what was out there around Paris and possibly even find someone nice I could have lunch or a drink with once I got to town. I found two websites that I’d heard a lot about (the French Match.com, and Meetic.com), set up a profile on each and uploaded a couple of photos – including one of me standing in front of Notre Dame, taken on my last visit.

I started getting emails from men at Meetic almost immediately. But before you get too excited, the vast majority were from men older than my upper age limit, some from men living in places like Portugal and a few Middle Eastern countries (I specified that I wanted to meet local men), and ALL of them written in French.

For the first time I realized I might have some difficulty meeting men this way, because quite frankly my French skills are operating on a third-grade level. For someone who makes a living out of communicating, it’s beyond frustrating not to be able to converse with a man in sentences other than, “What is your name? Where do you live? Do you like movies?” After that, THEN what? The only other French dating lingo I know is what every American over the age of 35 knows, thanks to Labelle and Lady Marmalade: “Voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir?” (But that could get a girl into trouble… especially on a first date.)

There was one Meetic guy, a Swiss man living near Paris, who seemed genuinely interested in meeting me. At least, he was pretty persistent in trying to communicate with me, en français, numerous times. For all I know, he could be a really sweet, decent guy. But I don’t think I’m going to have the chance to find out, because I just can’t communicate effortlessly – he apparently speaks no English, which kind of makes me wonder whether he was even able to read my profile. Was it just my photo he liked? Flattering, I suppose, but not a basis for a relationship. And it’s taking me too long to have to look up every word I want to say in the dictionary when I try to reply to his emails. Small talk can only take you so far when you’re trying to decide if someone is worth getting to know better. How will I be able to ask if he has any diseases, a criminal record, or likes to dress up in women’s clothing?

So clearly, I need a new strategy. For one thing, I updated my online profiles to be more specific about the men I’m looking for, and I’m now limiting my search to English-speaking ex-pats and French men who are more fluent in English. It’s not that I don’t want to meet French men, but trying to date and build a relationship is difficult under the best of circumstances, and why add fuel to that fire?

And maybe I’ll have to ditch the entire online dating thing altogether for a while, at least until my French improves. I’ll just have to meet people the old-fashioned way: getting up from the computer where I spend too much time anyway, and going out and doing things. Like attending some social functions through various Meetup.com groups in Paris – I’ve already hooked up with a few English-speaking but culturally mixed groups where I can make some platonic friends as well as be on the lookout for some nice men to date.

You know, I’d heard that expression: “You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince”, but if I’m ever to have ANY kissing in my life while in Paris, it looks like I may have to bypass at least some of the Frogs in order to find Monsieur Right.

After all, I don’t want the ONLY French I practice in Paris to be the language.