TO CATCH A PRINCE Sick of dating apps and d*ck pics, one writer took her search for a ‘nice, young man’ global
I’m in France –Champagne, no less– the country synonymous with romance, chivalry and Thierry Henry.
It’s the only country on earth where the humble act of chatting someone up is considered a practiceable art form. Alabaster tuxedos and Louboutins cut like chef’s paring knives against Domaine les Crayères’ green grounds. It’s a scorching summer night, elegance abounds and here I am, peering out from behind a marble pillar. Why? Well, I’m here on a mission of extreme importance, to find out if there are any gentlemen – you know, those men of legends and fairy tales; men who are honest, would never class sending you a picture of their penis as ‘a gift,’ hold the door open, don’t expect you to fork out for both meals on every date and have their shit together – left in this world. If they come with their own vineyard or château? A bonus. Crossing the channel to find a man might sound extreme, but I’ve been on 25 first dates since moving to London three years ago, most of them people I’d met through apps, so I figured it’s time to look for new breeds of fish in an entirely untapped sea. After all, as Einstein once said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Take the last man I dated, on and off for the past year, who I met on Bumble – a jack-the-lad with ambition who made my heart beat so fast that I once thought I might actually throw up before meeting him for dinner. Our unlabelled ‘entanglement’ was entirely on his terms, the excuses – “I lost my phone/Thought it was casual so you wouldn’t mind eight weeks of radio silence” – abundant. Recently, he posted a grinning selfie in which he’s wearing a hat with the letter ‘H’ on it. Underneath, he wrote ‘H = Hungry for pussy.’ I was eight hours deep into day-drinking at a wedding when I saw it, and suddenly I found myself crying out on the terrace. The type of embarrassing tears that appear when something inside you unexpectedly snaps like a chopstick and your face feels hot, because you’ve realised you’re drunk and alone and everybody around you is celebrating how beautiful it is to be in love. I ditched the buffet and dancing to curl up in my hotel room fully clothed at 9pm. Finally, I realised I deserved something better.
Hence how I found myself at Champagne Lanson’s first year sponsoring the Soirée Blanche garden party, an iconic event 90 miles outside Paris, surrounded by clinking glasses and flickering lanterns. The tickets are rumoured to sell out in a mere 20 minutes, and it’s attended by the great and the good of French high society – making it the place to see and be seen in summer.
The grounds are awash with beautiful people decked out head to toe in white. I lock eyes with a tall, tanned Frenchman in a crisp shirt and make a beeline to introduce myself.“How did you end up at this incredible place then?” I ask, smooth as a hacksaw.“I’m François… you speak very quickly. My cousin is the DJ here.” We chat more about his time spent studying in London, his work as a water engineer and music. His favourite? “Music is more for how I feel. I like whatever music feels good for the moment.” This guy is Frencher than eating 20kg of Brie. At this point I almost bolt (because I can feel my eyes twitching from the restraint of not rolling),
“If a gentleman comes with his own château? A bonus”
but instead take his number and hope with the help of iTranslate I’ll be able to crack a few jokes over WhatsApp later to see if perhaps there could be a spark there. I try rendezvousing that night for a drink, but he never replies. So I submerge myself back into the blanc sea, chatting to the locals for whom this is one of the biggest nights of the year. I meet MDs of luxury car brands, a man who fits air conditioning and a private chef, a McFlurried swirl of interesting people I’d never usually encounter. But the language barrier makes me feel like I’m the only person not versed in the language of love; and there’s only so far I can get with my one-handed sign language (the other hand is clutching a champagne flute – obviously).
The next day, while flipping through a magazine on the Eurostar with a sore head, I stare back into the eyes of Meghan Markle and realise I’ve missed a trick. All right, yeah, so I’m probably 87% less attractive than her, but still the fact remains that she, a regular civilian, has bagged an actual heir to the throne. A man whose life is lived under such an intense microscope, his manners must be nothing short of impeccable (I imagine). I mean, I can’t see a prince ever cheating on anyone then sending a text saying, ‘Nah I didn’t shag five other girls lol, it was actually six’ (as one of my ex-boyfriends did… after three years). But with both Windsor brothers off the table, I’ll need to look elsewhere if I’m to try and seduce actual royalty.
It’s 4pm in the muggy haze of west London. Alongside bloggers pulling identikit ‘Just brushing my hair behind my ear and oh! What’s this on the floor?’ poses, sports cars line clean roads like Quality Street on wheels. Shimmering rose golds, azure blues and canary yellow drag racers emblazoned with thick noir rims: the supercars of the city, shipped over for the summer by wealthy Kuwaiti, Saudi and Emiratis. Behind those blacked-out windows sit princes from a foreign land, here for the months of July and August to escape the blistering heat of their own countries. I’ve got a prime spot outside Café L’Opera in Knightsbridge, on a warm Sunday afternoon in late July, watching as another bulletproof four-wheeler pulls up. The driver opens the doors for his passengers. Out step two men with Bluetooth headsets, wearing body warmers over striped Armani T-shirts. I am invisible to them, despite giving my best winning smile. More men pass. Nobody looks at me. I’m on my second £5 latte. Finally, a man comes over.“Mind if I sit here while I smoke a cigarette?” “Not at all,” I say, closing my laptop. Because I don’t want any barriers to ever come between me and
“‘Are you from Poland?’ ‘Close,’ I tell him. ‘Essex’”
my future husband. Even if he does look about six years my junior and I have a thicker moustache than him. “So… do you, like, live here then?” There goes my hacksaw again. I’m so waterlogged all I can think about is going to the bathroom (but daren’t for risk of losing this prime eligible-scouting roadside seat). “No, I am a tourist. I come here to improve my English.” Excellent. I fire over more questions; he’s studying engineering in Kuwait, but wants to do so in Manchester, and in order for that to happen he needs to learn the lingo.“And you, you are from Poland?” “Close,” I tell him, “I’m from Essex,” as he ashes out the cigarette and thanks me for the table space. I make a note to book a wax as soon as possible.
The following Friday night, I head back, my friend (and failsafe wing woman) Yasmin in tow. Word on the road is things get way more interesting after dark. We befriend the owner of Café L’Opera who suggests that Zefi’s on Walton Street is “more our kind of place, with our kind of people”. I’m not entirely sure what he means, but if it’s two skint girls who live in south London trying to meet men somewhere other than their local Wetherspoons – then he’s bang on. “What about the guy who just walked in? He looks a bit like an Arabic Craig David and his phone is rose gold, so he’s probably a millionaire?” nudges Yasmin, as we prop ourselves up by the bar and try to make our £10 vodka, lime and sodas last for two hours. We ask every man who comes over what they’re drinking (Blue Buddha cocktails usually) like it’s the most fascinating beverage on the planet. Brokers who used to live in Dubai stop to chat – “My ambition is to broker for others so I can get rich,” says Ali. Smooth. I can’t imagine he owns any clothes that aren’t pin-striped. He ticks the ambitious box, but also the arrogant one. As does his friend (and possible bodyguard), a personal trainer named Farhad, who lives in north London. I can count every single one of his abs through that strained T-shirt – and, to be honest, I’m cool with it. But he won’t look me in the eye as we chat, then pulls his phone out – the ultimate conversation killer. We move round the bar and meet Karim, who is out with his brother Adam. Out of everyone we meet that night, Karim is the one I’ve been able to chat to the most freely. It’s 1am and I’m exhausted, but persevere. He asks if Yasmin and I are sisters, which makes us laugh a lot (as she’s very clearly Mauritian and I’m very clearly not). Another gigantic jeep pulls up outside. “Cool, right?” I faux enthuse. “No, I drive a Fiat,” he replies. Yasmin overhears and immediately orders us an Uber.
So far, so few dates. Going for men with the outward trappings of eligibility isn’t working out too well for me, it seems. Time for a different approach, to find a man of substance, who has roots in the community, and something to his name other than an a Serge Gainsbourg accent or £800k motor. I think I know just the place.
I’m tinged with a hangover and dressed not unlike Inspector Gadget in an effort to blend in with the rest of the wind-whipped country fair attendees. The annual Game Fair in Hatfield is (theoretically) teeming with rustic singletons. It’s known for attracting those with a passion for the great outdoors and country sports, and has been touted as ‘Glastonbury for the green wellie brigade.’ Plus, if you’re a farmer, surely it’s hard to meet women when you’re only ever surrounded by straw, grass and baby
“Prince or pauper, he makes me laugh”
sheep. With my friend Kara, I begin to search the various stalls. The ones dedicated to shooting look promising, with small groups of tanned, curlyhaired, Barbour-clad men fondling artillery. My usual tactic would be to go over to a potential mate and ask for a lighter, but I’ve quit smoking. Here, the new approach is to stroke their dog – everywhere you look there’s a black lab, whippet or border collie. It’s a veritable selection box of canines. I end up chatting to Mike – a seriously nice guy who tells me all about the horses and land he owns, but whom I fancied as much as a shot of pond water. Gigantic beards make me slightly dry heave as they conjure images of Mr Twit and pieces of rogue cereal and Post-it notes surely buried deep within their forest of face pubes. As a vegetarian of 15 years, it occurs to me while fussing over his golden sheepdog (not a euphemism) that me becoming a farmer’s wife makes as much sense as me becoming a mathematician. I hate mud. I like cities and acrylic nails. I just can’t fancy men who wear red trousers and describe their pets as ‘cracking.’ Just as Kara and I are walking out, we see hordes of people heading back to their tents. Whispers of an afterparty are in the air. Rumour has it (OK, fine, I asked Mike) that things get ‘pretty wild’ when the sun goes down, but we have to get back to London. I make a note to try The Game Fair again next year – with added sleeping bag.
Dissatisfied with the way my search for true romance is going, I head off to my friend Josie’s house party in Tooting Bec (home to the largest Chicken Cottage in Europe which, weirdly, you wouldn’t find in Knightsbridge) with a bottle tucked under my arm. Seven hours later, I’m dancing on a row of chairs with the girls.“Hey, would you mind taking a picture of us?” I say, passing my phone to a guy hovering nearby. He does. I thank him. We talk. His name is Ben.* We kiss. He’s missed his last train home. I offer up my sofa. He accepts, then orders us a taxi. I leave him in the lounge that night next to my favourite cushion with a picture of Drake’s face on it. When I wake up the next morning, Ben has gone, but he’s messaged me on Facebook: ‘Thanks for the chat, tea and hospitality last night. Would love to repay you with a drink? Great dancing, by the way.’ Obviously being the millennial-woman-withinternet-access that I am, my first response is to screengrab and send it to Josie, who replies, ‘Ah, Ben is so great. He’s always been really nice to me. And he has a swimming pool. You know his dad, like, invented Matalan**, right? Like he’s literally the Prince of Matalan.’ Which is when I realise I don’t actually give a f**k how much chlorinated water sits in his garden or if he owns a flashy car. Prince or pauper, he makes me laugh, seems to know himself and has a decent brain, which ultimately is what this experiment has taught me is most important. I may not have found anybody to date in France, the great outdoors or the swanky parts of my city, but maybe that’s because I was deliberately looking. It was only when I shut my eyes to dance with my friends instead that someone lovely appeared upon opening them. The fact that a few weeks later I discover Ben’s bedroom is bigger than my entire flat? Irrelevant.