on a bit of a green tea high, after gobbling up the most delicious sushi lunch at mifune in japantown, where i had one of my very first sushi dinners after moving to my very first post-university home across the street, years ago. oh, the memories.

been having a very leisurely stroll around the castro this afternoon, just wasting time until my friends finish up work. it’s amazing how much the gay mecca disappoints. as per usual, i’m making eye contact with every soul that i pass on the street, and everyone just seems so… miserable, even though it’s a gorgeous spring day. the frowns, the poor dress sense, the overall unattractiveness… i’m actually starting to turn my nose up. the two lads who’re remotely attractive enough to merit a second look, i stared down so directly that they’ve both thrown themselves in front of slow-moving traffic coming down castro street—not a pretty sight.

so i stroll into café flore [which i always improperly pronounce with an italian flourish, caf-ay floor-ay], all confident-like, and am blown away by the hybrid punk rawk/cali surfer boy behind the counter. he flashes a smile as i pretend to be engrossed by the menu.

his hair is the exact same shade of artificial yellow as mine, but his is in a punky funky mohawk. his tan sets off his white smile [impressive for working in a café] and he tilts his head, smiling, as i try to make up my mind.

erm, what kinda iced tea do you have? i ask…

he ignores my question, and just keeps smiling at me. do i know him from somewhere? he’s giving me a look… a very direct, piercing-straight-to-my-soul sorta look. that is such a cool shirt, where did you get it?

i’m wearing my maybe-a-bit-flamboyant pink/yellow/blue cowboy shirt, that i picked up in bristol but i reckon is australian… oh, umm, london, i think, but it’s australian, umm… i think. i’m blushing. big time.

we both giggle.

feeling bold, i reach over and fondle his wristbands. he’s cute enough for me to get over my hatred of the livestrong/tsunami relief/poverty relief wristbands—just this once. he’s not sure what the orange one means, but the neon green one means aloha, which makes absolutely no sense to me. my friends brought it back for me from hawaii, he explains, i dunno, i just thought it was cool. aloha, indeed.

in the end, he strongarms me into an iced mocha, with whipped cream, no less. trying to play it cool, and still suspicious of his flirtations, i only tip 25¢â€”i don’t want to come off as too keen or too desperate. i grab a seat in the sun, sipping slowly on my drink. i pretend to be leisurely reading through the free local gay rags, of course i’m really just peeping him.

i peep him peeping me, as he wipes down the counters, inching his way closer to my table. he’s smiling and singing, and i cock my head to get a better listen. my love for you goes… bang bang… cute, he’s singing bang bang, my official anthem over the past few weeks. i’m delighted, and almost want to jump over the counter and debate the merits of the nancy sinatra original versus the audio bullys remake. almost.

but then, i wonder if this barista at café flore falls under my very strict no bartenders policy. this policy was instituted during the badlands convention of 1998 to prevent eric from falling for the crafty bartenders, waitrons and other predators scattered around the castro.

i think barista boy is a no-go, since the merit of my policy is to prevent myself from being tricked by lads who flirt/serve/seduce dozens of gay boys at their daily job. that is, confident, cocky eric doesn’t want to be outmaneuvered by someone who’s better at playing the game than he is.

but, then again, i’m on holiday, so maybe the rules should be suspended…

the eurostar train pulled into gare du nord a bit ahead of schedule, robbing me of the minutes i needed to freshen up, faff the hair and mentally prepare for what was about to happen. stepping onto the platform, i felt only a tiny portion of the excitement one feels when stepping off an aircraft into a foreign land… my two hour train journey lacked the boarding rituals, the pressurized cabin, the stringent immigration checks, the jetlag that flying abroad presents.

looking up through the glass ceiling of the station, i saw a bright sunny spring day in paris, a welcome change from the bleak dreary london morning i’d just left. bleak, in no small part, due to my staying awake all night, letting the allure of london clubland evoke the vampire within. as i left .beyond at 7am to catch my train, after 8 hours of slamdancing, i chugged my third consecutive vodka + red bull, rationalizing it as the perfect way to start the morning of this exciting day.

walking down the platform, it really didn’t feel like i was in a foreign country. it felt like i had just stepped off the tube in some fictional zone 17. the pigeons looked the same. the air smelled the same. i didn’t feel jetlagged [although i had been awake for 24 hours at this point].

you can see here, of course, that i’m procrastinating in telling my story. i’m withholding the juice [le jus] the meat [la viande] of my tale. that’s because it’s all recursive… me blogging about meeting a boy, who i met through this blog. knowing he’s gonna read it, and more significantly, knowing now is the first time i’m letting myself contemplate the past 24 hours. oh, sod it…

the walk to the end of the platform seemed to take an eternity, which was just enough time for me to contemplate all of the 177 ways in which things would go horribly wrong. maybe we wouldn’t recognize each other? maybe he’d think i’m ugly? maybe i wouldn’t be able to understand his accent? maybe he’d be a foot taller than me? maybe he’d stand me up? maybe he looked nothing like his photos?

then i spotted him, dressed in a red jumper, smiling, bright-eyed and hiding his nervousness well. we had already agreed on some sort of internet stalker/stalkee greeting protocol, but i couldn’t remember [handshake? hug?] and just had to give him a quick kiss and a big hug. he was tall, much taller than i’d thought. and cute.

i felt at ease within minutes, strolling alongside him, smiling, laughing, bumping into each other as we walked down the street boulevard. most people would think meeting an internet date in paris spur-of-the-moment is kind of insane or dangerous or silly, but to me, what was insane was the flurry of emails and phone calls we’d exchanged in the past few weeks, full of contemplations and what if scenarios. this made sense, this was logical. my time in london is ticking away, let’s see if this boy who loves my blog will love the real me?

the sun was shining, birds chirping, and the city seemed so deliciously tranquil and relaxed compared to london. we started off with a japanese lunch of slurping udon and nibbling dumplings, laughing and smiling, still, at the preposterousness of what we were doing. the japanese waitress stopped by to compliment micha [in french] on how good his english was.

from the 10th to the 2nd to the 1st to the 6th arrondissements, micha took me on a perfect tour of paris. through parks, palaces, cafés and churches. sitting by the fountain, we joked a bit about how we met, and tried to establish precisely how nervous each of us were. i felt flattered as he took me to his favorite café, a bustling, elegant affair, with beautiful people and yelping poodles and a very friendly, smoky, loungey atmosphere. he pointed out a few french celebrities to me, knowing that i wouldn’t really be impressed.

that’s the kicker, of course. he, presumably, knows just about everything about me. well, not everything, but enough initial fodder to make our first rendezvous a bit lopsided. every lie i want to trick him with, every story i want to tell in an exaggerated way, every rehearsed secret i want to selflessly share, i have to reference, back-check, reverse-file and see if i had already blogged it, here.

how very 2005, how very i-generation, non?

it wasn’t until he tiptoed to the toilet, and the waiter stopped by, mumbling something to me in french, that it hit me that i truly am in a foreign country, having an incredibly foreign experience. i’m a global soul, but that doesn’t prevent me from being self-conscious that the french despise non-french-speaking american tourists. c’est la vie?

i found it tough to ignore the chemistry. my past few years in london have eroded my sense of romance, of flirtation without immediate sex. it sounds pathetic, and i’m not proud of it, but it’s the modus operandi of most london lads. this was the opposite of a quick pull in a smoky club. after weeks [well, a week-and-a-half] of getting to know so much, so quickly about this charming lad, online, to be sat in a parisian café, laughing over coffee and tea, knees touching, with the occasional comfortable silence—well, it created a very thick, very electric atmosphere for me, unlike anything i’d felt in a long while.

after the café, we strolled through streets lined with boutiques [with ugly women's fashion, but what do i know] and bookshops and art galleries. micha was doing a brilliant job presenting a very stereotypical, beautiful, bohemian version of paris, and i was gobbling it up. we picked up some macaroons from pierre hermé, the most glamorous and decadent bakery i’d ever been too.

don’t sit on the grass!

sitting in another park, slouching in some chairs, i bit into his pistachio/sour cherry macaroon as he sampled my 16-kinds-of-chocolate one. really, with no exaggeration, one of the tastiest, my delicate treats to ever hit my tongue. just sitting there, crumbs on our lips, the sun just beginning to think about setting, looking across this peaceful park, getting to know and feel even more comfortable with this romantic, exotic boy sat next to me… such the antithesis of my fast-paced, noisy, grimy, chew-em-up, spit-em-out london existence of the past few years.

as the afternoon progressed, i couldn’t stop noticing how this boy is more than the sum of his parts. half-german, half-french, i was able to pick out individual mannerisms, characteristics, body features that i could lump into one stereotype or the other. but underneath it all, there was much more. behind those eyes, a soul very different from myself, but also very complimentary to my own.

because he had stalked contacted me, because he already knows so much of my sordid past and yet still wanted to meet me, i was able to let my guard down and be probably a lot more honest and open than i normally would be with a [technically] total stranger. and, for this same reason, we both comfortably discussed all of the ways in which we’re incredibly, incredibly different.

we concluded our afternoon with a few sips of chilled kir, and a few martinis at les éditeurs, where i fought every urge to smooch him across the table. after the third or fourth time of him nagging we really should get going!, i finally relented and let him take me to the station.

around the departures area were a smattering of couples playing tonsil hockey romantically saying goodbye. hugs, kisses, embraces. gays and straights, lesbians.

and one blogger and his stalker, off to the side, smiling and laughing, and sharing one last kiss.