Tuesday, September 26, 2006

A Crush in Paris

I'm "in crush".
Well, not really in love, nor in lust, although neither would have been really difficult. But I think being "in crush" describes it better.

I haven't blogged about my second Paris visit last week because I have been busy. Since I intend to post about Paris, let's just give the basics for now. We had a conference there on our specialized research area, and except for the technician, our whole lab went there. The conference was from Monday, the 18th (although the registration and mini-party was on Sunday evening) through Thursday, the 21st. We were in Paris from the 17th through the 24th.

Right from the beginning, from the registration mini-party on the 17th evening, I had been eyeing Sebastien, his beautiful eyes and smile. As happens in such cases, wishful thinking led me to suspect he was looking at me too.
Later on Monday, I saw his poster-- a row behind mine, and I learnt he was from the Avner lab at the Pasteur. Both his and my posters were scheduled on Thursday, but on Tuesday I saw him near his poster and asked him whether he'd take me through it.
Ah, the smile!
Those eyes!
He was explained it to me and another guy, when we saw Jeannie hovering around. Jeannie is a big shot-- the biggest shot?-- in Sebastien's direct area of research, and it was obvious she wanted to talk to him. Finally she came to his poster, and started challenging him, apparently their data were in contradiction. I was impressed by his confidence, and his refusal to be bullied.
Wow!
Intelligence.
Courage.
The eyes and the smile looked even more beautiful now.

That evening the organizers had arranged a barge trip along the Seine. I spent the latter part of the evening talking to Sebastian and co.
He said he loved dancing, and pointed to a place on the other side where one could dance Tango. Ah did I ever regret before this day that I am not much of a dancer... leave alone Tango.
I asked him which district did he like the most. No, I didn't hear him mention Le Marais (the gay district), but a rather vague "depends on my mood and the circumstances".
He is from southern France and had grown up in Toulouse. He had been living in Paris for the past four years, and had been doing his PhD for three.

I saw very little of him on Wednesday because the afternoon was free, though I thought his eyes sought me.
Nothing new about wishful thinking... or was it?

A gala dinner had been scheduled on Thursday evening in the Evolution Hall of the Natural History Museum. When I finally got to him at the beginning of dinner, I stuck to him for the rest of the evening... no, that is not true, and this is not wishful thinking-- we stuck to each other for the rest of the evening. He certainly did enjoy the evening and my company.

Later on, I went with him and several others to an expensive bar near our hotel. He chatted with others, I chatted with others, but then most of the others left and we chatted until around 2:15 am and then went our ways. I'd asked him where I could by French DVDs, specifically Francois Ozon's (gay director) films , specifically his latest Le Temps Qui Reste (the protagonist is gay). He said he'd seen a few of Ozon (non-gay), but not this one. He said I could look in one of the FNAC shops.
Earlier I had met Damian from his lab who was doing similar stuff to mine and had been getting nowhere. Damian had invited me to the Pasteur the next day to have lunch with them and discuss work.

So on Friday I met Damian and Sebastien for lunch, at 1:15pm, and then after finishing discussing Science with the former, all the three of us went for a drink at around 6pm. This got converted to dinner and then we parted at around 10pm.
In the course of our conversations, I understood that Sebastien had had a Portugese girlfriend, and a Romanian girlfriend.
Wishful thinking insists: "so what?"

I had given hints, but maybe they were not good enough. Every day is a lesson, and that days was that in future such circumstances should be handled by a deft introduction of a "one of my ex-boyfriends..." into the conversation, however fictitious such a boyfriend may be. As long as I put my cards on the table, I would not feel like kicking myself for not trying hard enough.
At least there would be a fullstop instead of an irritatingly persisting question mark.

I have no idea whether I'll meet him again.

Today I put his name on google, and found that he had a blog... it is rather new, less than a month and a half old. It is in English too, that's a boon... who would have imagined a French guy not blogging in French! He seems really interested in India, as he has watched a lot of Indian films. Probably that was the reason he was interested in me, as he obviously was? He has watched La Mala Educacion, he seems to like Wilde's books. He blogs about varied things, but no girls, no girlfriends, no guys, no boyfriends. I cannot of course link to his blog, as he'd find mine, and I'd not want that, would I?

His blog has a tracker, and if he looks at it regularly, he'd certainly see that someone in Vienna had reached his blog by googling his name. Our lab, the eight of us, were the only ones from Vienna at the conference. Tatsuya does know him, but considering that I spent so much time with him, I am sure it wouldn't be difficult for him to guess that it was me. That I am the stalker. What then? Well I don't know.

The question mark remains.

But perhaps that is good. Paris is far from Vienna. A crush is managable, a long-distance love affair is always difficult to handle.
And it would have been really easy to fall in love, had there been any indication that that smile, those eyes, that look straight into your eyes, whether these were available.

So that's yet another crush on a guy who's very likely to be straight!

4 comments:

Vidya said...

Thanks to the Visitor, I came across your blog. This particular post, lovely. Really lovely. Awesome writing. Wish you good luck in finding your soul mate.

A.S. said...

Thanks, Vidya, for your kind comments and for the wishing me luck. I wrote this piece soon after returning from Paris, with the stars still in my eyes. Reading it again after your comment, I quite liked it too. Kinda cute, isn't it :-)

Vidya said...

Reading the post brought back memories of my crushes :D I did feel the stars in your eyes in between the lines when reading this one.

A.S. said...

:-))