Around the World in 80 Dates (13 page)

The same kind of impotent rage was rising up dangerously in me now. I was trying on and getting stuck in ill-fitting Soul Mates; I'd nearly lost an ear in this one. It was really starting to get on my nerves.

As I furiously debated these points in my head, outside in the real world I was still standing with one hand clamped to my ear, staring murderously at Max. His sniffing long stopped, he stood mute with anxiety and embarrassment. God, I was being a total bitch to poor Max.

“Max, I am being rude, I am so sorry,” I apologized gently. “I'm just feeling a bit all over the place at the moment.” My heart went out to him as he gave a wobbly smile, like a little kid whose ice cream just fell in the sand and was trying to be brave about it. He gave an exploratory sniff, as if testing the waters, then another. “Ah, please don't…that's to say…umm, well, then I really do hope you like sculpture, Jennifer,” he said, gradually regaining confidence and enthusiasm. “Because I am going to take you to see one of my absolute favorites. It's at the Musée Rodin. I'm sure you'll know it.” His face lit up happily. “It's called
The Kiss
.”

I could have killed him.

 

Actually, it turned out to be a fascinating visit. Rodin's impressive eighteenth-century house now houses his work, and I enjoyed hearing Max talk about the artist as we walked around the museum and gorgeous landscaped grounds (where we bought equally gorgeous
glaces
).

Rodin sounded difficult as hell, and his muse and lover Camille Claudel spent the last thirty years of her life in an asylum as a result. There were too many tourists around
The Kiss
to get a good look at it, so instead Max and I inspected the clay working-model prototype next to it. Although the lovers were passionately entwined, their mouths were actually a good inch apart. The most famous kissers in the world did not actually kiss at all. Maybe Olivier wasn't the only faux French Kisser. And no wonder poor Camille ended up bonkers.

It was raining when I said good-bye to Max back at the metro, which was a shame as I needed good weather for my next encounter: the Skate Date.

Every Friday night in Paris, up to 28,000 people took part in the Pari Roller: three hours spent whizzing twenty-five kilometers round the closed-off streets on in-line skates. I'd made a program about it a couple of years earlier and thought the atmosphere was so incredible—retirees blowing whistles, kids zipping in and out between their parents' legs—I wanted to take part myself. I also thought this would make a perfect date.

I'd spent six weeks wobbling round Fountains Leisure Centre in west London, being shown not so much the ropes as the wheels by Citiskate, the people who organize something similar to the Paris event in London.

My class was just the nicest bunch of people, and—all as hopeless as each other—we quickly bonded as we encouraged each other to make it through the embarrassing, painful learning curve. A group of about twelve of us had vowed we'd all get good enough to do the Pari Roller together. And one of the group, Nick, had shyly asked if he could be my Skate Date, even though our conversations had rarely consisted of more than “Oohh, that had to hurt” or “Waaaatch ooooout” as one of us smacked into a wall or body-checked an oncoming skater.

Well, tonight was the night. I ran through a curtain of rain back to my hotel. I needed to quickly check my emails, then change and pick up my skating gear (kindly delivered and being taken back by Jilly and Stevie). As I dumped my bags on the bed, I noticed the voice mail light flashing. It was from Nick: “
Hey, Jennifer, hope you're doing okay. How f**d is this rain? I just spoke to Marianne and she said it's probably off tonight. We're meeting at Bastille anyway, see you there—and, hey, get your skates on or you'll be late!”

He never tired of that joke.

If tonight was canceled, it would be disappointing though no great surprise. Actually, it was probably a good thing: My skating skills were a triumph of enthusiasm over ability. Speed-skating the wet, cobbled, hilly streets would invariably result in me completing the rest of my dating tour on crutches.

I got stuck on the computer trying to finalize a soccer date in Barcelona and writing another pleading email to the Date Wranglers to help me out on the U.S. leg, which was proving to be a nightmare. When I rushed out of the metro at Bastille, wearing an old pair of jeans and clutching a bag with my skates, helmet, and padding, there were only a few skaters around. Clearly the efficient website had spread the word that the skate was off.

I couldn't see Nick but spotted Marianne from our class, with Anne, Russell, Lisa, and about five others. They were huddled under a café awning looking very wet. Marianne waved happily as she saw me sprinting over. “Jennifer, can you believe this bloody weather?” she shouted over the din of the rain. “All that work and now we won't get to skate.” I smiled sympathetically: She was the best skater in the group and had been itching to do this since we started.

“So what's happening?” I asked, hugging her and the rest of the group. “Is Nick here yet?”

“Oh you just missed him.” She shrugged. “He wasn't sure if you were coming so he went off with some of the others to some Irish pub.” We both rolled our eyes: Irish pubs—the McDonald's of the new millennium.

I shrugged too. It was fine: no skate, no date. There was almost a logic to it. But just then, Nick and the rest of our group careened around the corner, running from canopy to canopy, yelling madly as they got increasingly drenched. Nick saw me with Marianne and came straight over, giving me a big hug. “Hey, Skater Dater, I thought you weren't coming.”

I laughed as he flicked his wet coat at me. “Sorry, I got held up. Hey, I thought you guys had gone Oirish?”

“That we did,” he replied. “But we thought we'd better come back for the rest of you Roller Rookies.”

We all laughed at this, then trooped into the café and found tables at the back big enough to fit the whole group around and dump our gear under. Nick sat next to me, and for about twenty minutes we chatted about my date-a-thon and life in general. But soon the rest of the group joined in, and our gossiping, teasing, and storytelling was still going strong when closing time came hours later.

And not only was that fine—it was wonderful. I realized that, in a way, my date was with the whole group. Together we'd worked really hard to get to the point where we could attempt the Pari Roller. And okay, after all that work, here we were, unable to skate because of the weather, but we'd all made it this far, hadn't we? That was surely something worth celebrating.

Kicked out onto the street, we hugged and shouted our goodbyes. I felt comforted and rejuvenated by the camaraderie of the evening. Our joint failure had turned into something lovely and reassuring, which instinctively gave me courage and hope for my own journey. I realized I had to make the time to celebrate the little triumphs, taking pride in how far I had come, rather than getting bogged down in one or two bad days and dates, believing they set the tone for the rest of my life.

Date #22—“Oh Romeo,
Romeo…” Verona, Italy

When I say the next thirteen dates were whirlwind romances, I'm talking about the traveling rather than the quality of the dates. I hurtled in and out of capitals so fast, I barely had time to open my bags before I was off again.

Back when Phileas Fogg embraced the challenge of traveling around the world in eighty days, Heathrow meant
man bowling.
But now traveling is so cheap and easy (we ask when rather than how), I went online and booked the short flights between Paris, Barcelona, Lisbon, Athens, Verona, and Berlin without giving it a second thought.

Maybe
thinking
was something I was trying to avoid?

Paris had taught me an important lesson: I needed to be less melodramatic. Date & Go, Date & Go; stick to the schedule, stay focused. If I was to survive all eighty of these dates without my self-esteem crashing and burning altogether, I had to establish some boundaries. I needed to find a cutoff point for the amount of time and energy I invested in each of the dates, so I wasn't continually churned up about something someone had/hadn't done/said. I couldn't take it all so personally.

I've never been the best at keeping things in perspective, but it was imperative I learned to do it now. I don't mean being cold and unfeeling (I really did want to find my Soul Mate on this journey, not just meet my quota of dates); I just needed to be more sensible. These were dates, social engagements; I had to stop being oversensitive and stick to logistics.

It was only when I paid some long overdue attention to logistics, however, that I discovered logistics were having a few problems of their own.

I was so busy dating, traveling, and—in any spare moments—arranging the next lot of dating and traveling, I'd forgotten to build in any downtime. I was becoming tired and disoriented. I'd wake up in the middle of the night needing to pee, but could only start looking for the bathroom once I'd remembered which date I'd just had/was about to have, therefore which country, city, and then hotel I was in.

I was also having to buy knickers and T-shirts since all my clothes were dirty and there was no time to do laundry. I knew I should make the time, but I also had to apply for my Chinese visa, check the trains between Verona and Florence, plus see if that cheap hotel in L.A. had any rooms available.

And every single day was a new day for potential future dates, making initial chitchat contact to test the dating waters. I wanted to email back,
“For chrissakes, you're one of eighty: Date me or don't, I don't have the time to talk you into it,”
but I knew I couldn't.

It felt like there wasn't a minute to lose; taking time off to do laundry just seemed impossible.

And then there was the issue of personal grooming.

My decision to travel with the sun made for a waxing dilemma. The hair on my legs was long enough to be noticeable but not really long enough to be waxed. Should I boil to death in trousers or stick to dinner dates so I could hide my legs under the table?

The same applied to my bikini line. Could I bear to leave it, as I normally did, until I got Koala Ears—when it appears there's a koala down the front of your knickers with the ears sticking out the sides—but then risk literally being caught
out
on an unannounced bikini date?

These might sound like small considerations, but they were what preoccupied my thoughts as I crashed into furniture looking for the bathroom in the wee small hours.

 

I raced from date to date, country to country.

 

Steve (Date #15)
in Barcelona was a friend of Hillary's from university. We had a date to watch soccer in a bar: England versus one of the Spanish teams. I love watching the big championships and thought I knew enough about soccer to hold my own. Steve soon put me straight. “Are England in the white strip?” I asked just after kickoff. Mortified, he spun around to see if anyone had heard, before hissing, “Keep your voice down.”

I was just another girl who thought that because she could name three players from Man U, she knew soccer. England lost; the date didn't go into extra time.

Ray (Date #16)
I vaguely knew through my friend Theresa. For years he'd been a financial broker in the city before burning out and giving it all up to move to Barcelona. Like me, he'd invested all his energy in his job and taken radical steps to find a more healthy balance. I wondered if it had worked for him and if he felt he'd made the right decision.

Theresa had omitted to mention Ray now worked as a street mime on La Rambla. When he arrived at the tapas bar, he was still dressed for work: silver catsuit and body paint. Apparently he was in the middle of a turf war with his rival, the Clockwork Bronze Man, and couldn't stay long.

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say we were the subject of a fair amount of attention. I was mortified. Ray was silent—an admirable quality in a mime, less so in a Date.

I caught the first flight to Lisbon the following morning.

 

Paolo (Date #17)
and
José (Date #18)
were friends of Jane, a South African woman I'd met traveling through Europe years ago. I knew Paolo played flamenco guitar and was taking me to the famous Pastéis de Belém café for
pastéis de nata.

We drank intense, bitter espressos to balance the rich pastéis, crisp buttery cups of flaky pastry filled with creamy custard, dusted with powdered sugar, made to a closely guarded secret recipe. Paolo was chatty and funny, but there was no spark.

It made me feel good to dance off some calories, clubbing with José in the trendy Bairro Alto district. He was extremely charming and his friends were lovely, but my “dancing till dawn every weekend” days were behind me. José was fun but not The One.

I went straight from the club to the hotel, to pick up my bags, then on to the airport for Athens.

Drakoulis (Date #19)
was the cousin of Effie, a Greek friend of mine from the gym. Maybe I could have coped with his heavy smoking—it was Europe, after all. But when we went to dinner,
everyone
in the restaurant smoked constantly and I struggled.

I'm not being fussy but it was disgusting. The air in the restaurant was heavy with thick, painfully acrid smoke. It was like having dinner in a burning furniture warehouse. Drakoulis took me on to a fantastic Rembetika club (a type of traditional Greek gangsta folk music), but my head throbbed and my eyes stung. I felt guilty leaving during the players' first break, but I had set and reached my limit.

 

Effie had also set me up with an AE (Amicable Ex).
Joseph (Date #20)
was a tour guide, and since his first group arrived at 10 a.m., we'd arranged to meet at the fish market for an 8 a.m. breakfast date. If it worked out and he didn't mind, I thought I might go on the tour with him afterward.

But I'd had five hours' sleep in two days and woke with a start at 8:30 a.m. I repeatedly called his cell as I scrambled to dress and get to the market on the off-chance he was still there. But his phone rang unanswered and there was no sign of him at the market.

Forget it: He'd probably drive you as crazy as he drove me,
Effie replied breezily to my apologetic email.
Though it would have been interesting to hear why he split up with Claudia.

Damn her: Joseph obviously wasn't an AE at all. He was a UE (Unresolved Ex) and Effie was using me to get an update. As I left for Italy, I silently congratulated myself on avoiding what sounded like unfinished business.

 

Verona was the home of Romeo and Juliet, arguably the world's most famous lovers. Some might argue that a couple whose poor communication skills resulted in joint suicide were perhaps not the best relationship role models. But up to 5,000 people a year saw it differently, writing to Juliet's house and tomb, asking for her advice about their own love lives.

Local poets and writers had been responding to the letters since the 1930s, but in 1975 Verona intellectual Giulio Tamassia founded the Juliet Club and arranged for ten unpaid, multilingual “secretaries” to answer the letters. In addition, he established the Dear Juliet Award, which is presented to the most romantic letter writer each year.

I'd been emailing Eleanor, the secretary responsible for Italian, Spanish, and English correspondence. With the explosion of the Internet and online dating, I wondered, were people increasingly emailing Shakespeare's heroine?

Eleanor had been a huge help, arranging not only for me to meet this year's Dear Juliet winner but also for me to stand on Juliet's balcony and date “Romeo.”

Whatever the outcome, I reasoned, it would be interesting to see what dating two of Italy's most romantic men was like. As terrible as it sounds, I suspected I would find dating an intensely romantic man a bit claustrophobic and annoying; all that fetching and carrying and fussing around would get on my nerves. Either that or I'd assume they'd done something really bad and were overcompensating.

I know, why I'm still single is a mystery to me, too.

This year's Dear Juliet winner was Davide, a Verona man in his thirties. As we waited for him at the Juliet Club offices, we watched a group of women chatting amiably around a huge table, sorting hundreds of letters into different piles. Eleanor told me it was easy to spot which country a letter was from: “French people are very passionate, very romantic. Italians and Spanish like flowery phrases; like South Americans, they are verbose, using a lot of words to say just one thing.”

I wondered if it was mainly the Latin countries that asked for advice about their love lives. Was there some truth in that stereotypical hot-blooded image?

“No, no.” Eleanor shook her head vigorously. “We get letters from China, Japan, Russia…all over. Latin people tend to be extremely forthcoming about their feelings. Americans are the other extreme: They'll write just a five-line letter saying, ‘She's blond, I like her, what should I do?' It's very frustrating. I want to tell them, ‘Say a little more: Do you know her, does she like someone else?' It's difficult to give advice when you know so little.”

British people are resigned to scoring badly in any kind of international personality contest, but I went ahead and asked Eleanor what the British were like. She thought for a moment before answering carefully: “Reserved at first, but then—since they are writing—they become very deep and introspective. It takes them a while to open up, but when they do it is heartfelt.”

Apparently, some think that Juliet is a saint or goddess of love: “People often don't go into that much detail because they think Juliet already knows their problem. And if their problem is resolved, people come and thank Juliet for her help. An Italian lady left a message at Juliet's tomb last month saying she had come three years ago single and here she was now, with her new husband. She saw this as a miracle and wanted to thank Juliet for helping her find love.”

Italy is reputedly one of the most romantic countries in the world, yet even here finding a decent boyfriend is considered a miracle. That didn't sound good.

 

Then
Davide (Date #21)
arrived. Just under six feet tall with short dark hair, he had large, soft brown eyes, like huge chocolate cookies ready to be dunked. Davide didn't speak English, so Eleanor was going to translate for us.

I hadn't had a chance to read Davide's letter; I wondered what had made it more romantic than any other that year.

(All translated by Eleanor.)

Davide: “It is not easy to tell people my story, so it took effort to write to Juliet. I had to be sure I was writing to someone who would understand. It started eleven years ago at a moment in my life when I was very alone and sad.

“I was walking through a cemetery and noticed a tomb full of dust that no one had taken care of for many years. I started cleaning it, and as I cleaned I uncovered a picture of a young woman on the grave. I saw by the inscription that she had died in 1927 when she was twenty-three, my age at the time I found the tomb.