A year of dating in Paris and this is what I’ve learned about love

What 30 first dates with French men will teach you

Hello you!

‘Your dating stamina astounds me!’ was a recent DM that had me laughing out loud recently.

The thing is when I want to find the answer to a question I’m pondering, learn something new or get an idea in my head - well, I run with it. I throw myself in head first and dating post divorce has been no different. Dating in Paris post divorce has added even more flavour to the mix.

The city of love is a slippery slope when it comes to dating because of what I call the wonderland effect. Your perception and the reality of what’s really going on are easily mixed up because of how beautiful and romantic everything is. You only have to meet for a walking date by the Seine to feel like you’re in a movie or you’ve somehow fast forward to the mini break phase. It’s too easy to get carried away. We get swept up in the romance, and then reality catches up with us. I think this can be true wherever we live but I’ve found the Paris effect to be magnetic.

It’s been a year and a half since I started dating. Curious to unravel the mystery of love and decode the opposite sex I set off on my dating adventures with an I have no expectations I just want to meet new people and hear their stories attitude as well as a firm I don’t kiss on first dates rule.

I’ve been out with around 30 guys at this point. Mathematically I still shouldn’t have settled by now. The 37% rule says if we have to choose from 100 possibilities we should sample the first 37 and ignore the rest. It’s explained in dating terms throughout this podcast very well but basically after we’ve sampled this amount the next best thing is what we should settle for. I’m almost there.

But can love be reduced to the mathematical? What even is it? How do we know when we’ve found love? Can it last a lifetime? What is a man’s experience of it vs a woman’s? These are the big questions I’ve been unpicking and discussing on my dates. My favourite thing about Latin men, aside from their passion and irresistible accent is how openly emotional they are and willing to talk about the topic our beloved city is famous for.

Here’s what I’ve learnt so far. Some lessons have been big, some small but all feel equally relevant…

In love is where we’re most vulnerable

‘So, do you date a lot?’ has to be the most asked question I’ve had on dates. It sums up the fragility I’ve seen in guy after guy. To my utter delight it turns out they’re not the emotionless monsters I presumed they all were once upon a time. They have feelings. Lots of them. Yes we’re from different planets but I no longer believe in sides. I think we have a lot more in common than we don’t and our vulnerability in love is perhaps our greatest commonality. We all fear the pain love may bring. The potential rejection, humiliation, disappointment and heartbreak leave us in a frantic spin that whips us into survival mode. Here is where we struggle to be our authentic selves, rely on our ego to keep us safe and sometimes, more often than any of us like to admit - feel like we’re losing our minds.

A man’s experience of love is very different to a woman’s

More logical for sure in that I think men will willingly waste your time but they will never knowingly waste theirs I’ve come to the conclusion they’re a lot more fragile that we’re led to believe. And I know this may be an unpopular opinion but I’m convinced they suffer heartbreak more deeply than women. They also benefit from being in a relationship more than women do because they don’t have the same level of emotional support we get from our platonic relationships. They’re not encouraged to be emotional or vulnerable in their day to day life and I feel for them deeply because of this. It leads to a lot of repressed emotion and overused gym memberships. When they’re in a relationship men receive the love, support, care and relief only a committed partner can provide. Even the internet ‘self-development bros’ are starting to encourage guys to get into relationships having caught on. We mustn’t forget women still tend to carry the majority of domestic responsibilities which they benefit from too. As a result of their resistance to process emotions, they feel the effects of heartbreak later for sure. It’s become a hard rule not to date a man who is less than a year out of a long term relationship. They’re simply not ready.

Dating without direction is a disaster

Until recently I only cared about two things when it came to a potential date: 1. I found him attractive and 2. he made me laugh. Clearly I hadn’t been taking it as seriously as I should have or maybe this was just the phase I needed to go through at the time. My friends would ask what he did for a living and I’d say I don’t know. I don’t care. Well where does he live? Where is he based? They’d ask. I’d have no idea and be laughing by this point. There was no direction to my dating, no long term goal. All I wanted to do was forget my past, meet new people and see what was available, thinking I’d figure out what I wanted later. This was a bad idea in hindsight. It was bad because what we consciously tell ourselves vs what we subconsciously need and desire can be very different things and without awareness, honesty and the bravery it can take to admit to ourselves what we want, we can very easily fall into the wrong hands. You cannot outdate psychology. The wounds we need to heal will show up in person after person until we learn the lesson they were sent to teach us. Dating apps in particular get a bad rap, but for those who have a clear goal or objective whether that be a long term relationship or casual sex they’re great. It’s the I don’t know what I really want people (raises hand) who find themselves getting lost. The love technology isn’t the problem, how we use it is.

You will never truly know a man until you’ve slept with him

I think men are designed to chase in the love game. I also think they enjoy this but feel under pressure to ‘perform’. As the one being chased it can be fun but devastating once the chase is over and their true character is revealed. Who we are in the beginning of a love story where we meet under romantic expectations is always the best version of ourselves. If this is not reaching the bare minimum bar we set for a potential partner, then expecting things to improve will only lead to heartache or leave you wishing on dandelions for him to return, which he will because men are like boomerangs, but he will be unchanged and ready to break your heart all over again.

We’re drawn to those who express the parts of ourselves we don’t want to deal with

This is a direct quote from my favourite go to love expert Esther Perel but seeing it play out in real life has been fascinating. They might reflect our craving for security, a family, an ego boost, adventure or a carefree attitude. We fall in love with what a person represents and that has a lot to do with the things we personally crave or feel we lack. In essence we are actually falling in love with ourselves.

To love as an adult we must heal our inner child

There are a lot of overgrown children in a lot of pain trying to date and it can be a vicious playground to navigate when the tantrums start. There’s nobody to call the end of playtime, put us in a time out or tell us we went to far and now we must apologise. We’re all carrying our traumas around and by the time we’re in our 30s our patterns are well and truly engrained. Male or female this is how we work as humans and it can lead us to live our lives from a place of fear. To heal is to change our behaviour and while it’s no mean feat it is the only way to truly open ourselves up to a healthy way of loving and being loved. Our choice.

Vulnerability is how we grow love

Brene Brown defines vulnerability as emotional risk. I’ve noticed a lot of faux vulnerability in dating. It’s easy in the beginning, when nobody is invested and we’re playing a game or putting on a show. We talk the talk no problem and sharing feels easy because there’s no risk yet. This isn’t really vulnerability though because the risk is so small, we’re not invested. Single people in Paris aren’t hard to find. Most of us go on enough dates to not care if one doesn’t work out early on - we simply move onto the next. But when we’ve invested a certain amount of ourselves, our time and feelings are starting to develop, things begin to change. Vulnerability becomes hard and we’d rather move onto the next show instead of seeing this one through. We’re stuck in a repeat of opening acts. We’re too afraid to see where things will go so we never find out.

Love is a verb

We do love. Words might be your love language but they’re not enough alone. Actions are how we show true love and how we should measure it.

I knew very little about it

I thought I knew a lot about love and relationships. Ten years of marriage ought to have taught me something right? It did but not in the way I thought. My husband was 17 years older than me and I rarely date older guys now. The dynamics are very different without an age gap. Getting to know my own generation has been an education I needed. I thought I’d find dating a breeze but it turned out I knew very little indeed and I’m grateful for everything I’ve learned so far.

We all want the same thing

It’s my belief that we all want love; to feel seen, be touched, known and accepted for who we are. Even one night stands or casual situationships are an attempt at the intimacy we crave. The men who turned out to want such things were some of the loneliest and unhappiest I’ve ever met. Fear might be our greatest obstacle but our desire for love is greater and drives us to keep showing up. At our core, platonic or romantic, I think love is what we live for.

You can’t give up on love if you want it

The fear of missing out is all too real when it comes to dating apps. The first sign of conflict or negative feelings is when the temptation to swipe the apps returns. It’s easy to believe there’s plenty more available and this person can’t be right for us because if they were ‘the one’ it should feel easy. The choice story we tell ourselves is an illusion and coping mechanism. People and profiles are two very different things. Sooner or later you need to choose one person, give it a try and see what happens. Love is committing to show up for that person day after day.

We get what we’re willing to accept

I sometimes feel ashamed of how little I was willing to accept at the beginning of my dating journey. Perhaps shame is the wrong word because I understand it was a reflection of my self-worth at the time and it most definitely needed work. Sad is probably more appropriate but then I also feel grateful because they all taught me something and led me to where I am now. Seeing the external shifts alongside my internal healing and self-belief work has been astonishing. Learning to believe I deserved more and say no to men who couldn’t meet my needs was the hard part. The partner we choose is a direct reflection of our self-worth. When we change this, which we can, magic begins to happen.

The ending is visible at the beginning

We can’t hide who we really are. Even when we’re on our best behaviour we’re giving ourselves away in the muted details. At the end of a relationship you can look back and see the snippets of truth you wish you’d paid attention to were bubbling on the surface from the start. Esther Perel (I told you she was my favourite) says by our second date we’ve encountered the argument we’ll have on repeat throughout our entire relationship. Accepting people for who they are is a gift to both them and ourselves, as is walking away when you know in your heart the connection isn’t there or they can’t meet your needs.

Love seems to be the one area of my life I cannot simplify no matter how hard I try and I’ve become ok with that. Date by date I’ve learned how to let go a little more each time and let myself fall, which I’m finding is the only way to move through love - freely. To try to control it or hide from it is to deprive ourselves of happiness, which can only exist alongside pain. We can’t have one without the other and to feel both is to feel our most alive.

My final and greatest lesson has been that there’s always a reason driving our behaviour. Behind my initial no expectations mask, I think was the hope in my heart that I would find what I was truly longing for, what we all long for - love.

Sending you oodles of it.

Jessica xxx

P.s. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on these noticings, any differences of opinion or synchronicities you have. Let me know in the comments.

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