Desperate Times

Now that my internet situation is finally improved, I am making my triumphant (ha) return to blogging. Don't worry, I won't depress you like I did when I was in Scotland. Life in Saint-Omer is going really well. I'm feeling very settled here - I love my new apartment, we finally have internet at our apartment (hopefully it'll last), and I have made a lot of friends here. Included is a picture to prove that I am only a loner when I travel by myself. It was taken to commemorate our bootleg Thanksgiving dinner, which consisted of a baguette, salad, green bean casserole, stuffing and mashed potatoes.

In total, there are six language assistants in St-Omer. Four of us are American: Rachael, my roommate, Christine, Tara and me. There is also a German assistant, Carina, and a Spanish assistant, Estela. Tara, Estela, and Carina all live together in the school where they work. Rachael and I have an apartment near the center of town, and Christine lives with her boyfriend, Julien, who she met when she was an assistant here last year. We really lucked out with that because it gave us a built-in social life. Julien is studying at a nearby engineering school, so basically all of his friends are guys. Unfortunately, it turns out that all attractive French men have girlfriends.

Shortly after arriving in France, I realized that working only 12 hours a week left me with too much time on my hands. The perfect solution? Having a French boyfriend, of course. Not only would I have an automatic time-filler, I'd improve my French! Ideally he would have either a car or a motorcycle/moped so that I wouldn't have to carry my "milk bricks" home from the grocery store. Unfortunately, finding the perfect French boyfriend has been more difficult than expected. The only guys fawning over me are either a) creepy and overly persistent, or b) still in high school. Out of curiosity, I looked up the age of consent in France - Emily had been making jokes about me dating a student - and I discovered that it's only 15, but I think we can all agree that it would be really freaking weird if I went there. Not to mention unprofessional!

Yet at my school, there are also students who have taken the bac, that is to say finished high school, and are continuing in a program (BTS) that is the rough equivalent of a community college education. Therefore, they are 18+. Apparently teachers have married BTS students in the past. They are technically fair game for me, especially since I'm not a true teacher, but I resolved not to date any of them. After all, they're still students. Yet, I think that my decision was affected by the fact that none of the guys in my two BTS classes are very attractive. My resolve has since weakened, partly because the supply of single guys is limited and partly because I met an absurdly cute BTS student last week.

It all started when my supervising teacher, Marianne, asked me to come to her class and help the students with essays they were writing. One student in particular had a question that she wanted me to answer, and I couldn't help but notice that he was incredibly good-looking. Tall, brown hair, blue eyes...and guys speaking French just makes whatever they say to me sexier. It was cute because at the end of class he asked Marianne if I could come back and help them again. She told him it was up to me, and because I am so nice (and getting desperate) I agreed. And I'll be honest: I wore my tightest jeans to the following class.

Annoyingly, I didn't have a chance to talk to him at the next lesson because a bunch of his classmates had questions for me. How dare they put their academic needs ahead of the cure to my boredom. I was forced to leave that Friday without knowing his name or age, which were two pieces of information I had intended to collect. I did find out that one of his classmates is 22, so that gave me hope that he was my age and heightened my interest. Reaching a new low in terms of desperation, I announced to Marianne at a dinner party the next day - attended by two of her friends from Britain, her 22-year-old daughter, Anne, Christine, Julien, and Rachael - that I thought one of her BTS students was really hot. She knew exactly who I was talking about and said that he had seemed interested, but unfortunately, one of the girls had turned to him at one point and said, "Don't you have a girlfriend?" Of course he does. They all do. What a shame. He even had a motorcycle.

It's a little sad to have gotten to the point that I'm ready to date my students, but I don't even care anymore. Don't worry - I haven't relaxed all of my standards. The following are still in effect:

1) He must be at least 20 (That's not too young, right? I'm only 22...);
2) He must not have a girlfriend;
3) He must not live with his parents (Is it bad that I'm wondering if I should leave any flexibility here?);
4) He must live in or near St-Omer or at least have an easy means of transportation;

and most importantly...

5) I must be genuinely interested in him - no dating purely based on boredom.

As I'm headed home for Christmas in less than a week, I'm not optimistic about my prospects, but I'll resume the hunt after Christmas!