How To Lose A Host Mom in Ten Days

I like to think of myself as charmingly awkward. This is so that I don't have to realize that I'm just awkward. I'm like a bird bent at odd angles, stuffed into a body that doesn't quite fit it, and blessed with a mouth that speaks only the words that will prove most detrimental in any given circumstance. And that's when I'm trying with every fiber of my being to be other than what I am. You should see what happens when I let down my guard. Or I can tell you. This is the story of me courting my host mother.


It started well, truly it did. We got along, she laughed at my jokes, and we took a bus together. A good first date, all things considered. I met her husband and we seemed to get along. Look, I thought to myself, her friends like me! Surely this will be utterly perfect and in no way make me want to shrivel up and die. It's cute when I pretend I'm not living my life.

Gradually, however, I started realizing that things were amiss. She came home one day and we were talking in the hall. She said she was going to the living room. Sensing an opening I asked if I could join her. I was met with what I will call her owl stare (eyes wide, a sense of expectation on her part. There's a gravity to this gaze that inevitably draws more words out of my mouth to fill its orbit. It's a black hole that sucks away the last vestiges of dignity. It is terrifying. [No, I'm not dramatic]). She then asked, in tone as stoic as could be, "Why?"
To which I responded, "Maybe you're watching TV?"
"No, I'm going to check my emails."
"Ok, haha, I'll leave you alone then haha. I won't annoy you anymore."
"Yes. Dinner is at eight."
What she obviously meant was: "You insane cretin. How dare you attempt to encroach upon my time! And to insinuate that I might participate in such base pursuit as the regard de télévision...you do know I'm French?"


Things quickly deteriorated when, while trying to once more talk with her in the hallway, I accidentally accused her of having perverted knowledge (gross knowledge) of ancient Rome rather than having a lot of knowledge. Although honestly what with the whole culture of pederasty there's hardly a difference.


The next day, having learned my lesson, I did not engage her in hallway conversation. Dinner rolled around and, as her daughter was off being smart and French and doing med school, and host daddy was elsewhere, it was just us two. As she went to switch out the courses, I, taken by the caprice that will one day be my downfall, decided to hold up my empty waterglass to my eye. Like it was a telescope. Unfortunately I timed my childish self-indulgence wrong and she entered the room. Commence owl stare. "Is something the matter?"
Now here's what I don't get. I could easily have said something like "I enjoy the way this glass refracts light and thus was entertaining my overactive intellect with the appreciation of energy along the visible wavelength from a perspective other than my own whilst you were in the middle of bringing me this food which, by the way, is delicious."
Instead I said, "I think I'm pretending to be a pirate."
To which she replied, "We mustn't do childish things at the dinner table."
Of course, what I heard was, "Mortal, who you are is NOT okay."

What you should take from this is that there are times in your life when you will feel so uncomfortably real that everything else seems to fade away into the background and you will come to the realization that nothing justifies your existence in the face of the person with whom you are interacting. This is a walk in the park compared to being me. Happy tenth day in Paris to me!