Single in Suburbs: Pulling in clubs Parisian style (From Wandsworth Guardian)

Single in Suburbs: Pulling in clubs Parisian style

5:01pm Thursday 7th July 2011 in Freetime

This week Alexis meets a Frenchman in a nightclub and gets a lecture off her friend.

To be honest, most of the men I've dated/ had relationships with, I've met in bars or clubs. In fact, up until the age of 22, I didn't know how else to meet someone. So when I told my friend Kristina about my latest 'pull', a Frenchman in a nightclub, I was shocked to hear that she disapproved of my "drunken antics".

“You do realise that, if you pull someone in a nightclub, then the chances of seeing them again are pretty slim,” she said, raising her tone in an offensive manner.

“But he does want to see me again. He texted me the next day asking to take me out for dinner,” I said, waving my mobile phone in her face to show her the evidence.

“Mmm and I bet you were drunk, right? Whenever you get drunk you attract the wrong type of bloke”, she continued. “But, even if he turns out to be OK, it will never last. You met him in a nightclub.”

Why, if I met him a nightclub, does it mean it won't last? How can you make an assumption about someone's character based on the place where you've met them? Why is she being such a cow? I pondered all of these things silently to myself while glaring at her and eating Maltesers.

“I wasn't drunk, I was a little bit tipsy,” I told her, “and besides, he seemed nice. He was really friendly, spoke good English and he was nice...”

I broke off. I was going to say nice looking but, as my mind desperately tried to search through the hazy recollections of Saturday night, I realised that I couldn't actually remember what he looked like. I was obviously on the drunk side of tipsy.

This gave my friend the ammunition she needed to launch an all-out attack. “Ha, so you don't remember him? I bet he was hideous! Are you seriously going to go ahead and meet a guy when you don't remember what he even looked like?”

I thought about this briefly and then decided yes. Yes, I would meet him. Why? Because life's too short and sometimes you have to take risks. If you don't then you may never reap the rewards. The rewards which are potentially on offer here include a new, hunky French boyfriend and numerous trips to Pairs. (Paris is my favourite city in the whole world. It's also where he's originally from.) For that, I'm prepared to take a leap of faith and let this strange man I barely remember take me out for dinner. If anything, it will help me to get back into the swing of dating - I've been out of the loop for a while.

As much as I value my friend's opinion, and I know she was only getting wound up because she cared, I totally disagree with her on this matter. The bottom line is you can meet someone anywhere - in work, while out jogging in the park, on a bus, on a plane - anywhere. Just because I met French Guy in a nightclub doesn't mean the relationship is doomed from the outset. It just means that's where I met him - out with friends, on a dance floor, while drinking vodka.

Ok, the vodka may have clouded my memory of that night a little making it difficult to remember exactly what he looked like. But he was definitely tall, with dark hair and a sexy French accent. That sounds good enough for me.

In fact, if I'm going to be taking advice on whether I should or shouldn't be meeting this man from anyone, then it will be from my parents. They first met in nightclub Cinderella's Rockefeller 25 years ago, and are still together and still very much in love.

Who knows what the future holds for me and French Guy but, at this moment in time, it involves dinner and drinks on Friday night, something I am very much looking forward to, even if I don't quite remember what he looks like.

Read next week's column to find out how my date with French Guy went.