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NOW – JULY
My phone beeps with a text from my friend Émilienne that reads:
I’ve been keeping a secret – I’m finally, madly, head over heels in love thanks to a little-known matchmaking website called Paris Cupid. Why don’t you join? If anyone deserves love, it’s you!
What Émilienne doesn’t know is that I have a secret too.
I am Paris Cupid.
Six months ago
On a cold February day, Émilienne cups her head and cries. I give her shoulder a useless pat as we sit side by side at Café des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement. What can anyone really do for a heartbroken friend, except be there and listen? I’ve just returned from a holiday to London visiting my parents whomoved back to the UK recently, so this is the first chance I’ve had to comfort Émilienne in person.
Dad is British and MamanisFrench. I’ve spent most of my life crisscrossing the English Channel because they could never make up their mind where they wanted to live before I settled for good in Paris in my early twenties. Truth be told, I went home to lick my wounds after a terrible break up too, but I’m at the stage I want to forget it, not rehash it. Besides, I’m here for Em today, not for me.
Émilienne’s shoulders slump as she says, ‘He told me I’m too intense. That my needs are too great – all I asked was if he wanted company at the gym, and suddenly I’m needy? Nothing ever goes the distance.’ It’s been a few weeks since he broke it off and Émilienne is still mourning the relationship. ‘Is it me? Am I the problem?’
‘Non, of course it’s not you.’
‘I’mdonewith men.’
‘He wasn’t the one for you, Em.’ Time and again this comes up for my friend. If she’s not being called needy, she’s being called aloof, detached – it doesn’t make sense.
The waiter arrives with our café crèmes, takes one look at Émilienne, and flees as if her sadness might be contagious. I encourage Émilienne to take a sip of her coffee as the waiter returns with a plate of colourful macarons. ‘Excusez moi?’ he says. ‘These are for you.’
Émilienne gazes at him, her eyes glassy with tears. ‘But we didn’t order…’
‘Gratuit.’ He dashes away as quickly as he came. Ah, Paris, the city where a broken heart is recognised and remedied by a hit of sugar. Temporarily remedied, at least.
‘See?’ I say. ‘There’s plenty of nice men around. Every day, I read the most heartfelt, hard-won love stories in the letters I sellat the market. Sure, true love can be elusive, but it’s out there, I promise you. You can’t give up.’
Émilienne gives me a weary smile. ‘Your love letters are from another era, Lilou. While they’re beautiful mementos of yesteryear, life isn’t like that these days. Romances like those are a thing of the past.’ She lets out a frustrated sigh.
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ I say as a murky idea takes shape. Could the lost art of love-letter writing and slow-burn romance be the answer?
Can you fall in love with a person purely by their words alone? According to the bundles of love letters I stock at my stall in the Marché Dauphine at the Saint Ouen Flea Market, you can. Those letters may be relics from the past but that doesn’t mean that sort of love doesn’t exist any more. ‘You never know what’s around the corner, Émilienne.’
My friend is usually a ball of energy, one of those early to bed, early to rise types who does yoga and goes on retreats to balance the days when she eats her bodyweight insoufflé au fromageand washes it down with ademi-bouteilleof Sancerre, but this latest break-up has really done a number on her. It’s hard to see her usually bright complexion so sallow as if she’s given up on all the good things she does for herself. We’ve all been there. Eaten our way down a four-litre bucket of ice cream and chased it with a bottle of red wine to ease the hurt. But Émilienne can’t seem to shake off this latest break-up. It feels more like she’s blaming herself, rather than the fact they just weren’t compatible.
I suppose it stems from dating a string of similar men, telling her a variation of the same sort of critique every time. And I get it. My dating history isn’t exactly stellar. Are us unlucky-in-love types choosing the wrong men, or are we just going about this the wrong way? Maybe we need to change the method we use to find love since it’s clearly not working for either of us. Could I match Émilienne with the perfect man? She always goesfor the health nuts, men with regimented gym routines who wear too tight clothing and obsess over their green vegetable intake. These men don’t seem to appreciate her, not the way she deserves. They’re more likely to stand her up for an abseiling day or something equally crazy. Time and again she chooses the same type of guy. Are we all making the same mistakes with love, on repeat? I picture her with a man who is passionate not about his exercise regime but Parisian life. He’s cultured but not pretentious. A reveller on occasion but appreciates waking early to watch a sunrise or two. Happy to humour early morning jogs when the mood strikes her, but equally happy to stay in bed late Sunday with a scattering of newspapers and a lot of lazy kisses.
Émilienne doesn’t need platitudes about her lovability, she needs proof. More importantly, she needs to know she doesn’t have to lower her standards to find her soulmate. But can I help her believe such a thing? It isn’t like I have the best track record in relationships myself. Émilienne needs Cupid to shoot that arrow and snare her the type of man she’d never choose for herself. Could I make that work? Could I be Paris Cupid?
Later that evening rain lashes sideways at my apartment windows while I muse about my matchmaking idea. As I mindlessly scroll on social media I discover more posts about shock break-ups, speedy divorces, or awkward dating-app encounters. Why isn’t love going the distance for some of us thirty-somethings? There’s that overarching fear that all the best men are married by now and the clock is ticking to find whoever is left out there, being set up by friends or using apps.
Dating apps are the primary way in which my friends find love, and they work for a lot of people, but they’re not for me. Itried them for a while but shied away in favour of meeting the one meet-cute style. A girl can dream, right?
From what I can see posted online there are others who find the rules of love just asmystifying. It’s not exclusive to Paris either – some of my British friends are facing the same struggles.
What if there was another option? A matchmaking site for lonely hearts who have tried other avenues but want to take things slower? Really get to know one another by exchanging letters before they meet so they have a solid foundation that won’t fizzle out within a few months. Itcouldwork. Matches won’t exchange phone numbers, they’d exchange PO boxes. Instead of sending pictures, they’d send letters. All they’d share is their first names and what they do for work or a hobby to keep things mysterious as they get to know each other through words alone. They could fill out questionnaires about themselves which would help me find them a suitable match.
The idea needs fleshing out but what if it worked? What if I could singlehandedly help Émilienne and so many others like her find real abiding love?
I could develop a bespoke matchmaking service for those who have given up on love or feel that love has given up on them. Designed for singletons – like Émilienne, like me – who find modern-day romance tricky to navigate after one too many messy endings.
As I jot down notes, I use my own struggles in the dating world as inspiration for what Idon’twant Paris Cupid to be. I’m a heart-on-sleeve romantic and find myself weary having to constantly filter out the real from the fake. There’s no such thing as old-fashioned courting any more. It’s all a great big rush to meet, to remain non-exclusive, that it tends to leave one a little deflated, when time and again things end because they’re not committed and only want a casual relationship.
