A Work Colleague Forced Me to Download Bumble Before My Trip to France...and It Changed My Life

How I Met My French Husband in the Pandemic, Plus a Guy with One Single Tooth Who Insulted My French, and Which Apps to Use if You're Looking for Love in France

Chers amis, Chères amies (Dear friends),

Today we’re all about l’amour (love), so let me start by sending a little your way. Merci d’être venu(e)s (Thank you for coming). Du fond de mon coeur ! (From the bottom of my heart!) Every time you open my email, every time you share a story or a thought, every sweet ❤️ you leave me—sharing this community with you has added something so love-ly to life. I hope it feels good to you, too.

Before We Dive In, Just a Few Quick Updates from Paris…

But if you just want to hear more about the dating adventures of the over-50 crowd in Paris, scrolllll it on down for my life-changing meet-cute with Monsieur B and other tips from my friend Whitney who’s in the middle of her own French dating journey right now! There’s even some helpful French dating vocab, au cas où (just in case).

Staying in an Airbnb while our place gets repainted. I brought the piano and worked on some new songs!

French Jazz Band Practice Update and Why We Had to Move Out of Our Apartment

Last week I mentioned that I had a rehearsal with my new Parisian jazz band (tee hee, I still laugh when I think that they actually accepted me, a person who had never sung with a band). We’re all getting to know each other, they’re teaching me how to read les partitions (the arrangements) and we’re getting ready for a few upcoming gigs. Preparing mostly jazz standards like Night and Day and Old Devil Moon, plus lotsa lotsa Bossa Nova, most of which I’m singing in Portuguese because I love how it sounds.

Well, I was feeling pretty lousy the week before my first “official” rehearsal and had even basically lost my voice. Monsieur B was both worried and stressed because on the very same day we had to pack our entire apartment and move elsewhere to make way for the workers who were coming to fix the place up.

But there was absolutely no way I was going to miss la répétition (the rehearsal), so I got a French doc to jack me up on meds (isn’t that what all jazz singers do ha!), and I steeled myself to get through it, singing with a mouthful of Strepcils—basically the French equivalent of Halls lozenges—the whole time.

Thankfully, I survived and hit most of my high notes, but I didn’t shine like I sometimes can, although I did belt for a few minutes to the point where they had to turn the microphone down. But sadly, no ✨sparkle✨.

Do you know what I mean?

Mais j’ai fait de mon mieux, et c’est ça qui compte ! (But I did my best and that’s what counts!) Can’t wait till next time (coming up very soon) now that I’m feeling much stronger.

Be Part of Our Wonderful Online Meet-ups

Have you heard about our Le Salon by La Flâneuse creative co-working meet-ups? They are so delightful! I’ve added a post at the top of the La Flâneuse home page which will always have the next upcoming dates with links to register if you want to join us. We’ve had well-known singers and composers, knitters, painters, writers, and people just trying something for the first time. We’ve had people from all over the world!

You can read all the deets here. It’s a very kind and beautiful space. Just bring a creative project you’d like to work on alongside us in a supportive and international online community. C’est vraiment sympa (It’s really fun). All are welcome.

Le mur des “je taime” (The I Love You Wall), Montmartre, Paris

OK Now Let’s Talk about Love (Over 50) in the City of Lights

Bon, I know this is a huge topic, and of course there are all kinds of people looking for all sorts of different people, situationships (as the kids say) and relationships. You can read about how I moved to France for love, and see the deets of my pretty French wedding in a medieval village here, but what follows is the story of how I met Monsieur B in the middle of Covid 19, along with some dating tips from the French trenches via one of my girlfriends here who is in it to win it!

How I Met My French Husband and Fell in Love in Paris

In 2021, I was living in Fort Greene Brooklyn in a large, luminous studio with a rooftop overlooking lower Manhattan. Most of my work over the past two decades had been in high-end event design, production and consulting, but in 2019 I became the founder of a really cool startup in the end-of-life space, hoping to help us all align our dying wishes with our values and our priorities. Interesting timing, I know! But it’s a project I remain so incredibly proud of, even today.

Just months after launching, our small team went completely remote and I spent nearly fourteen months mostly alone, working madly, going out for runs, and spraying my groceries with bleach (I know!).

In the spring of 2021, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. It was Covid cabin fever, and I needed to get back to Paris, a city I had loved since I was a little girl in Ohio. Although quand j’étais jeune, ma famille ne voyageait pas (when I was young, my family didn’t travel) and I never had the chance to visit la Ville des Lumières, I’d always held onto my dream.

In French class in Ohio when I was 11, the teacher asked us each to choose a French name. Without thinking about it too much, I chose Geneviève because I thought it sounded classy and super grown-up. I had no idea until decades later that Geneviève is one of the patron saints of the city of Paris! Quelle belle surprise !

So despite the fact that France had closed its borders for a second time, I went ahead and organized a whole trip anyway, willing le président Emmanuel Macron to open the dang country again. I was planning to stay just one month, enough time to take a language course in the morning and work New York hours in the afternoon/evening. But a smart friend told me to stay an extra couple of weeks—thank you my dear Isela, you changed my life! Isela said that six weeks is optimal because you really have time to settle in and live more as a local. I booked my flights, and those two extra weeks proved important to my destiny.

It Takes a Village: I Would Never Have Met My French Husband Without This

I now must call out my friend and former colleague, the inimitable Sydney Borlabi, for pushing me way out of my comfort zone back in 2021. Sydney is now building her own skincare company, but at the time, she was working with me on the leadership team of my startup in NYC. She knew that I’d been single for several years, so when she heard about my trip to Paris, she suggested I try Bumble (the dating app) on the international plan. I told her, “Thank you, no.”

You see, I had already “done” the online dating thing years before, when there were no such things as “apps,” and you had to log on to your computer to access Match.com. I’d had two terrible experiences back then—maybe I’ll talk about them at some point, but not today out of respect for my darling Monsieur B, except to say, blague à part (seriously, no joke) they involved both cheating and animal blood. So yeah. “Thank you, no.”

Also, I wasn’t unhappy alone. I’ve always been independent, and even though of course I would’ve loved to have a great partner, I just hadn’t found one. In fact I’d escaped a long and unfulfilling relationship with a complete jerk chef in NYC years before, so I’d made it a priority to build a beautiful life for myself.

But Sydney pressed me. She wasn’t having any of my, “I don’t need a relationship” negativity. She said yes, of course you could still meet oddballs on the apps, but literally everyone was now on them and that it was the only way I’d ever meet anyone.

I still wasn’t convinced until Sydney, demonstrating the skills that make her a sought-after marketing genius, said something unexpected that reframed my whole perspective.

“Don’t think of it as dating. Think of it as a chance to practice your street French with guys who will buy you drinks.”

Now if this sounds a wee bit cynical, maybe it is. But les ami.e.s, please believe me. I had suffered in love, and I was worried about getting duped again. I’d had almost exclusively very bad luck (and even worse judgment) when it came to guys. In fact, way back in 2016 I’d actually told my literary agent that I wanted to write a book called: A Series of Unfortunate Men: I Failed at Relationships So You Don’t Have To.

This is the actual page from my 2016 journal where I mocked up a cover of the sure-to-be bestselling advice book-meets-tell-all, “A Series of Unfortunate Men: I Failed at Relationships So You Don’t Have To” 😂

But back to Sydney’s selling point. It’s true that I’ve always loved speaking French, and I was at a point where I was really trying to up my actual French conversation game. If I didn’t have to pay a private tutor by the hour, and I could enjoy a glass of wine with a friendly French man (and hopefully offer a nice moment for them as well), what was the harm?

It Took Me Forever to Post My Dating Profile on French Bumble

I got to France in late June 2021 and it was two weeks before I filled in my profile and started chatting with French men. Sydney prodded me nearly every day. I took the French lessons part of the project seriously and committed to doing every single aspect of the dating apps en français—mon profil (my profile), des textos (text messages), les rencontres (the dates).

I’ll spare you most of the details of my experience in the two weeks before I met the Marvelous Monsieur B (if you pronounce it in French, it’s muh-syuh BAE 🥰), except for these:

Fear of Filter

I was worried that because of my age (54 at the time), I’d be filtered out by all but les petits vieux (the little old men). That assumption turned out to be absolutely wrong—most of the guys I connected with were in my range, and that fact has proven true for my other friends too. It’s different here. Monsieur B, the handsomest and best of them all, is just six months older than me.

False Advertising

It’s like when you want to book an Airbnb. You gotta really look at the photos and ask questions if there are no pics of the bathroom. I met one guy whose photos were “active” if not that “attractive.” He seemed to like running, etc.

Malheureusement (unfortunately) I failed to notice that he was not smiling in any of his pics, and when I met him just outside the métro Saint Germain, he grinned upon recognizing me and revealed the single tooth that remained in his head 🦷 🤦‍♀️.

Mes chères et chers, je ne déconne pas (my dears, I am not joking). Shouldn’t he have led with that info?! I know, I should’ve literally run away. But as a lifelong people-pleaser from Ohio, despite my dismay, I was spiritually programmed to be nice. So I forced myself to have a drink with him, et tu sais quoi (and you know what)?

He spent the entire time telling me how much better Jodie Foster’s french language skills were than mine, all the while smiling unselfconsciously with that one stubborn tooth.

Mais bien sûr que Jodie parle mieux que moi, mieux que nous tous en fait. Elle était au lycée français depuis son enfance. (Well of course Jodie speaks better than me, better than all of us. She was in a French immersion school since childhood.)

The bottom line: I think we know why he was (and likely still is) single, unless he fell in love with a kind-hearted dentist along the way, bless his heart 😂

I Was About to Give Up on Dating in Paris

The truth is, I’d gotten what I’d said I wanted. I’d gone on several dates and banked the equivalent of about 5 hours of solid French conversation along with the adjacent texting. So from the standpoint of my stated objective—speak more French—it was all good.

The downside: I hadn’t met anyone who’d made my heart beat faster. No one who made me want to go on another date or imagine any kind of future. Somehow, despite my saying I wasn’t looking for a relationship, it actually felt disappointing not to have met anyone remotely right for me. With only two weeks left in France (and a pre-planned 5-day trip to Bordeaux before leaving), I decided to give up.

I was lying in bed in my little Airbnb on the Rue de la Roquette near la Bastille on a hot summer night, swiping like a robot one last time, determined to delete the app the following morning before I went to language class at the Sorbonne. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe.

Then tout à coup (suddenly) a face caught my eye. The man was clearly very handsome, but it looked like no one had ever taught him how to take a selfie, so all his shots were angled from below the chin, showing amazing ceilings in fabulous spaces, for example, rather than playing up his good looks. But he had a spark. He looked fun, and he seemed to like to go places. When I swiped on the last photo in his profile I could tell that someone else had taken that shot. His smile was beautiful and his eyes were laughing. I decided to write to him.

The thing is, I couldn’t come up with anything to say. I know what you’re thinking:

“Karen, that is somewhat hard to believe, given the average length of your newsletters.”

But it’s true. I was not feeling optimistic. Then I saw a button on the Bumble app that encouraged you to press it to “Say hi” or something like that, and I just tapped it without thinking. I figured it would send a message that said “helllooo” or “bonjour” or something. Instead, without my approval, it immediately forwarded a GIF of what looked to me like a member of a Korean boy band laughing hysterically.

Ah mince ! (Dammit).

I decided I didn’t care, what use was any of it anyway? And then I got a reply. It was only four words:

“Paris ou New York ?”

Now, this message demanded a response from me, because I was slightly insulted that this guy didn’t even say bonjour.

Still, I reminded myself that I had just sent a stranger what could be interpreted as a slightly inappropriate (if unintended) GIF as a first greeting. So I decided to just keep the conversation going. I told him I lived in New York but that I loved Paris and came a lot on my own. We chatted for a couple of days like teenagers (my French teacher even scolded me for secretly texting in class!), and then we made a plan for a Tuesday night date.

My First Date with My French Husband

Le jour J (the big day) was un jour de pluie (a rainy day), and we were both mouillés (wet) when I first saw him standing next to the cinema by the Odéon métro station. He was tall and handsome with salt and pepper hair and a close-cropped beard to match.

He walked me to a place he knew just around the corner, a totally sweet, Frenchy-French bar called Chez Georges. He took my coat and hung it up. He pulled out the table for me. He took off his own coat, sat down, and then he folded his arms on the table and looked up at me with his gorgeous smile and twinkling eyes. Inoubliable ! (Unforgettable!)

The scene of our first date in Paris. These photos were taken later on a non-rainy day, after we were married. You can see Monsieur B's wedding ring in the photo of our hands.

When I asked him why he was on Bumble, he answered me very simply and humbly. “I want someone to love.” ❤️

I cannot explain my feelings except to say that until that moment, I had never met the man who was meant to be my husband, and this was an instant recognition of something.

Within ten minutes Monsieur B asked me if I’d like to go to dinner with him (mais OUI !), and four hours later after sharing a great meal, a rhum baba and lots of funny stories, our first date was over.

That week we had four dates, four days in a row, before we said goodbye at the Gare de Montparnasse (remember, I was leaving for Bordeaux—and he was going on vacation with his kids). I want to tell you about all of those first dates, but maybe that’s for another time. At the moment when we took the photo below, five days after meeting, I was really sad because we had no idea when we’d see each other again, but at lunch I gave him a ring I always wore so he would know that this wasn’t the last time.

The first photo we ever took together in Paris at the Gare de Montparnasse in early August 2021

At center, on our wedding day, photo by Lucie Atlan. All the others are simple portraits of three incredibly happy years together as les jeunes mariés (newlyweds).

French Dating Vocab and Tips to Help You if You’re Dating in France!

Application (appli) de rencontre (Dating app)

Le premier rencontre (First date)

Et si on allait boire un verre ? (Would you like to get a drink?)

Oui, volontiers ! (Yes, I’d love to)

Veux-tu dîner avec moi ? (Want to have dinner with me?)

Quest-ce que tu fais dans la vie ? (What do you do? as in, for work)

Que fais-tu de ton temps libres ? (What do you do in your free time?)

Tu fais du sport ? (Do you play sports/exercise?)

Depuis combien de temps es-tu divorcé(e) ? (How long have you been divorced?)

Merci pour une soirée très agréable (Thank you for a lovely evening)

J’aimerais bien te revoir bientôt (I’d like to see you again very soon)

From the Paris Trenches: Tips for Dating in France (Over 50)

I have a beautiful friend who moved to Paris about a year and a half ago. She was newly single and looking for a big change of life and a new adventure. She’s been on the dating scene for awhile now, so I asked her for the best apps and for a couple of tips. If you’re looking for love in France right now—or planning to soon—we hope these tips will help you. Merci, Whitney, ma belle !

If you’re dating over 50 anywhere in the world, will you please leave us all a comment and tell us how it’s going for you?

Whitney’s (and Karen’s) Tips for Dating in France over 50

Dating Apps/Platforms

Facebook Whitney says: “I’ve recently tried Facebook and like it because it’s free with all the search criteria included. All the other sites are very limited in filters without paying a high fee.”

Tinder Whitney says: “In my experience it’s 70% men, but maybe only 1/50 would be worth a chat. I would never use Tinder in the US 😂”

Bumble Whitney says: “It’s good and it seems that men are actually looking for relationships rather than just hooking up.”

Karen says: “I met Monsieur B on Bumble and was on the app for all of 3 weeks total! We should be a Bumble Poster Couple!” ♥️👩 🧔🏻♥️

Hinge Whitney says: “Also good, more people searching for real connection.”

Happn Whitney says: This is a French dating app but seems to be more oriented toward hook-ups than actual relationships. C’est pas mon truc ! (It’s not my thing!)”

Tip 1

Learn a bit about the culture beyond the touristic stuff—the food, arts, politics, things that are in the news, etc. This will show your interest.

Tip 2

Try to speak at least a little French, or else just be very honest in your texting and flirting online. If you use a translator to create perfect French texts before meeting in person and then show up without being able to really speak, um, awkward!

Tip 3

Define your non-negotiables before setting up dates. If you’re over 50 you can be more up-front and honest about your priorities and your needs. Otherwise, if you leave the important questions till later, you may find you’ve lost time that would be better spent elsewhere, and you may get burnt out.

Tip 4

Be honest about the time you spend in France. Are you really just here a month or two per year? Or do you live here mostly full time?

Tip 5

Stay safe. No matter your age or your confidence, first meetings should take place in public and you should safeguard your personal details till you feel more comfortable.

Tip 6

Be positive and be patient. It can be a long game, but everything can change in an instant when you meet the right person. In the meantime, if you have the good luck to be living in France and hoping for love, just look all around you and be grateful. Build your own beautiful life, and that will make you more attractive to everyone.

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My sweet friends, I’m wishing you all good things this weekend, and if you should be looking for love, keep your heart open.

Prends soin de toi (take good care of yourself) 💐

Bisous 💋

Karen