A Girls Interests and A Boys Interest

I met a cute boy on vacation!

I met a boy at a club while on a family vacation a few weeks ago. It was our first night in Nice and my sister and I had decided to go dancing with some fellow American girls we’d met that morning.

At this point in my life I’ve already understood myself to be the kind of person that does not enjoy drinking or clubbing but the excitement of being in a new country combined with the fact that I meet the legal drinking age of France, motivated me to go.  

The club was odd. Maybe it was because it was just painfully French or maybe it was because of my lack of clubbing experience. All that I knew was that the way the club transitioned from a boisterous bar to a proper club for dancing was to have everyone get up and dance on tables. The dance floor was the table. Fun choice. 

I didn’t get through my margarita because I find all alcohol gross. So I’m dead sober standing on the bench of the table dancing (barely moving really because if I did I’d fall to the ground) to a bands cover of popular songs. 

Once the band went for a break the boy next to me began chatting me up. I learned he was from Australia, it was also his first night in Nice and he had come with a travel group. We had both previously spent time in Europe staying in castles and I showed him some pictures. 

I told him I was sober because my drink was nasty and he offered me his which tasted just like mango juice. Looking back I shouldn’t have tasted his drink considering this is a common way of getting roofied but it looks like I wasn’t my sharpest that night. After trying the drink I sent my sister to get me a glass. 

The conversation ended as soon as the band came back on stage. I resumed dancing, not thinking about the guy anymore. I thought he was similar to me, excited to be in France and making pleasant conversation with the new people around him. 

The boy moved up to standing on the table behind me and I remained on the bench. Soon after, one of the girls my sister and I went to the club with moved down from the bench so that I could go and stand next to him. Apparently he’d been staring at me the whole time. 

I move to stand next to him and we resume talking (shouting over the music, really). He asked me who my favorite artist is. I hesitated answering as I was weary with him being a boy he’d make fun of my female interest. Especially since my favorite artist is a woman who makes undeniably feminine music. I tell him who it is anyway, Lana Del Rey. 

He responds not by mocking me but by guessing my favorite album and song correctly. He also goes on to tell me his favorite artist is Frank Ocean. 

All this did was wave green flags in my mind. He respected a female artist so often humiliated and his favorite artist is an evocative gay black man. Often when assessing a man the first thing a woman will do, subconsciously or not, is find out if he was safe. In this case, there was nothing scary about him. 

I ended up talking with him at the beach for a few hours that night. Once we left the club he turned into someone else entirely. He wanted to make out and I declined, he wasn’t happy about that. As he became a bit pushy on the beach I found myself wondering where that sensitive boy that I was talking to not long ago went. 

I find it fascinating how much of male deception towards women is hidden behind a carefully curated performance of sensitivity. It’s conveying that he’s not scary, he’s not like other guys. He likes rom-coms or Taylor Swift, he’ll watch the Barbie movie with you. In this case, he deceived me through his interests. 

Maybe it was because I never saw myself as someone capable of seemingly such blatant deception that this experience threw me off so much, I spent several days after this night on the verge of tears. 

He was pushy but not aggressive so I couldn’t understand why I was upset. Before getting to the beach I told him that I wouldn’t sleep with him. I knew it was blunt but I’d rather be outright with it so that he could leave if that is what he was looking for. But even with my clarification, his night was still ruined. 

He hurt me, but it could’ve been worse so I was confused as to why I was so upset. Maybe I was disappointed. We were living a scene straight out of a movie. Two people from different places meet in the South of France while dancing. We talked at the beach while under the moonlight. It was so close to being perfect. 

But no, the state of girl had to creep in. As a girl you are not seen as the hot main character of a rom-com to a guy, but as an opportunity for something sexual and nothing more. I’d been girl’d in a way that I hadn’t been before. The gut punch feeling I was left with that night was the result of my newly realized female subjugation.

Reflecting on this experience I often feel ashamed. But is that my shame to hold? That I found someone's sensitivity endearing? I’d like to think not but I don’t know how I’ll navigate the world as a woman without sharpening my edges, without constantly second guessing intentions, without becoming nasty. Without becoming like them.