"Rain, and from the opening credits to the closing heart..."

Posted by Isabel Dexter at 22:28 on 9 Oct 2009

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Learning a new language is a little like falling in love, the capacity for misunderstandings is huge. The desire for communication transcends the words you use.  There is so much room for doubt and for failings.  I have a bad habit of talking in the conditional, which is probably galling enough in English, in French it is presque impossible. They say that people who speak more than one language often unveil different aspects of their personality in different languages. Despite my hopes of being a little bit Jane Birkin, mixed with Lou Doillon and a dash of Carine Roitfeld whilst in Paris I suspect that I am actually more like Lindsay Lohan pre-Ungaro (tart is not a good look, even for tabloid fodder) but without the lesbian aspect. (I mean, French girls are pretty and everything but talk about high maintenance!)

As The Australienne commented, it's all been pretty much downhill since Mean Girls. And yet that doesn't stop her dancing on bars, tables and possibly fireplaces. I may be the only person in Paris who thinks like this but you gotta love inappropriateness. Otherwise, we may as well just create our own Ministry of Truth and start adhering to Mr Orwell's Newspeak. How else do we learn how to think, except through language?

En fait (in fact) if I hear the phrase "C'est normal" (It's normal/it's usual) one more time I might practise my very own French girl strop. C'est normal? C'est normal? Is it so normal to wait until you know what the majority think and then go along with it? Is it so normal to hate all your boyfriend's female friends on principle? Is it so normal to expect him to cheat on you? Or to be more ashamed of leaving the house with chipped nail varnish than of jumping the barriers at the metro?  Or to care more about how things appear than how they really are? And more to the point, who cares if it's normal. If it was normal to jump en masse into the Seine would we all be doing it? Apparement, oui.

My Henry thinks I am re-living my rules-heavy childhood in Paris and playing at teenage rebellion. Hence the penchant for late-night pre-party booze runs to the corner shop. (Although I do make a point of getting Smirnoff and not the cheap vodka everyone drinks here. Hey. I'm a labels kinda girl.) Admittedly I have been considering digging out my old Doc Martens and listening to Nirvana. And I have recently started applying makeup again on the metro. So everyone stares. So what? J'en ai rien à foutre! (I don't care).

I also can't stand the not being allowed to laugh out loud on the street thang, having to be super skinny (The New Blonde, who is a UK size 10, was told she was too fat this weekend at a club. Nice.), the strangely political no-queue queuing at the bakery, the way everything comes with mayo, the having to practically whisper when you speak on your mobile in the street, the lack of glitter on faces even in clubs and the bizarre strategic way that the French organise their social lives. Plus a few more lace tights, leopard print fur coats and dancing in the streets wouldn't go amiss either.

Mais....like all great love affairs, my fling with Paris often feels like it's bordering on hate. As Blair Waldorf rightly stated in Gossip Girl "Only a masochist could love such a narcissist." Perhaps we're meant for each other, Paris and me. XOXO.

"Rain, and from the opening credits to the closing heart, Gershwin" from The Muse This Time by R. Zamora Linmark

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