Lesson 2: You can’t always find boyfriends on the metro

As I’m sure you’re all well aware, Paris has garnered quite the reputation for itself over the years as the unequivocal ‘City of Love’. This may be easy enough to believe from a distance, what with the countless reincarnations of the Parisian love affair in popular culture everywhere, from Woody Allen thinking sticking Owen Wilson anywhere near the Seine was a good idea, to that album your old school pal recently uploaded on Facebook of them and their partner having a lol and a half over overpriced headbands and nostalgic sing-alongs at Disneyland. The thing is, there’s nothing like being stuck in the most packed out train of the day on a dreary Monday evening next a couple who don’t seem to realise that they actually own separate faces to have you truly believe it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m perfectly content to go about my day humming along to Carly Rae Jepson’s ‘Boy Problems’ (an excellent tune which I have downloaded from Spotify so as to carry me through any journey ahead) next to hoards of people who are having an inappropriately great time in a germ-seething, public metal box. I’d even go so far as to say I’m happy for them and the fact that they finally know what it’s like to feel the warm embrace of another person, as they wobble and crash right into the lap of an old woman sitting on the dodgy fold-out seat beneath them.

So you might understand why I’d believe the metro could be a potential breeding ground for a coup de foudre with René or Pierre, my beautiful French husband-to-be. However, my hopes have slowly begun to dwindle every time I spy a boy in nice glasses who doesn’t immediately get on one knee as I step foot in the carriage. In actual fact, my attempts at a successful mid-commute romantic encounter tend to go a little bit like this…

I’m standing on the edge of the platform, a delicate sheen glistening across my  forehead as I peel off yet another superfluous layer and stare wearily straight ahead at the other side, watching the passing train wipe away the smudge of people like an industrial-sized Etch-a-Sketch. Exhausted, I glance across the hot rush hour crowd to my left when, suddenly, I’m taken aback.

There, just metres away, stands the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on. Their perfectly coiffured shaggy locks fall dreamily into deep, chocolate brown eyes, whose gaze I meet and in that instant resolve that this must be true love. This is it, I decide, as the train hurtles into sight at the end of the tunnel: it’s now or never. I begin the fatal march, one foot in front of the other, pace building as my heartbeat lurches faster in time. Closer and closer I get, until I can hardly contain the words any longer. Finally, I’m at their side and I can feel my clumsy line begin to tumble out of my mouth, but before I get the chance they turn away and with a quick tug of a lead they’re gone.

It’s really great that they allow dogs on public transport here.

You see, it turns out it’s not that easy to find love in the real world. Life isn’t a fairytale, despite what Taylor Swift and co would have you believe half the time and I must admit, I got a lot more pleasure out of the one time I saw a fellow traveller biting into a beetroot, which ended up dripping its bright purple juice all over their face, looking like they’d come straight from a cannibal convention with Barney the purple dinosaur, than from any sighting of the regular well-dressed suitor boring himself into oblivion on candy crush.

The truth is we all get a little lonely sometimes, whether that’s on a jam-packed Cindies dance floor when your best friends have all become Blue-tack for the night, or on a solo wander through the towering boulevards of Paris, but that’s to be expected in a world where existence itself can be exhausting. For the moment I am really quite content with my only love affairs being those with the local crêpe guy, my (completely unawares) office boyfriend and good, well-aged hot camembert.

So hold on and relax, because at the end of the day the couple using only each other for support on the rickety morning metro are most likely to topple over eventually and, I can guarantee, life’s a whole lot easier from where you’re sat.