A strange man approached me when I was nodding off in the foyer to the Louvre Museum’s Decorative Arts Library. I thought it was a place exclusively frequented by gay men and the girls who carry their purses, but I was wrong.

I was too tired to ignore the semi-charming stranger, and he somehow obtained my cell phone number, but at least I gave him a fake name. After I skipped out on his invitation to see a boring exhibition at the museum, he called me a week later and confronted me for my lack of textual reciprocation. He claimed to be “a nice man” who only wanted “friendship” and “conversation.” I was skeptical, as I consider myself somewhat skilled (and not naïve) in the ‘men expert’ milieu.

There was no fussy email writing, but we met up over a casual orange juice on a grand boulevard. Even though I told him that I was “in a relationship,” he tried kissing me multiple times during the orange juice. And he kept
exclaiming with enraptured delight: “You’re a simple girl!” He meant it as a compliment, but somehow the translation fell flat on me.

Tweet This Post