petite anglaise

The Frog commented the other day that I should flesh out his ‘character’ a little bit. I use the term ‘character’ very loosely indeed, as it’s all been gospel so far. I’m guessing he might now be wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.

I thought I’d start by sharing with you the romantic tale of how petite anglaise and Mr Frog first met: an epic love story involving alcohol, a nymphomaniac and a personal ad.

Many moons ago, when I was ‘working’ as a teaching assistant at the Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle university (which despite the misleading name is sadly not housed in the famous Sorbonne building), my social life consisted largely of going out drinking with the other english teachers.

Sarah* was one such teaching assistant. She liked a drink and was prone to rather promiscuous behaviour. Such as inviting a dustbin man that she found attractive into her flat for ‘coffee’ in broad daylight. And letting a young clochard in for a ‘shower’. With the aim of entrapping yet more Parisian males, Sarah decided to publish a personal ad in the Fusac magazine . The exact text of the ad escapes me, but I remember the use of the word ouverte, by which I think she meant open-minded, but of the hundred or so replies she received many seem to have interpreted as “willing to participate in a threesome”.

One evening Sarah brought some of her letters over and we looked at them while over a bottle of wine. One of the letters on her reject pile struck me as rather funny. The writer had cut pictures out of magazines to illustrate his text, including a particularly hideous photo of a moustachioed man sporting white socks with plastic beach sandals whom he claimed to resemble**. This aside, we appeared to have some interests in common. I persuaded Sarah that it would be amusing to call him and arrange to meet for a drink. Maybe he could bring some friends along. So it wouldn’t be like a blind date (or so I told myself).

The three of us met in the Café Charbon and from the moment I laid eyes on his Paddington-style duffle coat, I thought there was something rather nice about him. I also thought he was gay – probably because he was wearing a jumper with a rainbow motif – but once we had established that he was not, the only problem remaining was that Sarah had taken rather a shine to him too.

Casting aside any scruples I may have possessed, I decided to go along to a club night he had mentioned where his friends were dj-ing the following week. Without telling Sarah. She wasn’t impressed and we didn’t have much contact after that, but all’s fair in love and war.

And of course I still enjoy teasing the Frog about why he was replying to a small ad in the first place.

*names have been changed to protect the promiscuous
** thankfully this was a joke