Une nuit de vin

Went to Grapes’s wine tasting class last Wed night. I sent him an email the week before saying that my friend Ali and I wanted to take his wine tasting class sometime and he wrote back saying that he was going to England for a few days and would be back the following week. So we settled on Wednesday night—a 5-7pm wine tasting followed by dinner at one of his favorite local restaurants.

I was at lunch with B the day before and he asked if I wanted to meet up on Wed night. I told him I couldn’t because I was taking a wine tasting course and his face literally fell. He was like, “With that guy?” And of course I’m trying to play it all innocent, I just look at him confusedly and ask, “What guy?” And he’s like, “The guy from the bar on Thanksgiving” And I’m like, “Oh… right. Um, yeah” And he says, “I don’t like that guy—he was trying to play me [or something along those lines—more French though]. I saw how he was looking at you”. Now I thought the little outburst of jealousy was kinda cute but considering that I wasn’t completely innocent here I figured I should try to put him at ease. So I just explained that I was just going for the wine tasting and that I was going to bring some other girlfriends along so it wasn’t like Grapes was going to try anything, and if he did, I wasn’t at all interested—I did leave out the part about dinner though… probably TMI anyway.

Anyway, Wednesday rolls around and Ali, Sofia and I head over to Grape’s place for the wine tasting. He lives about 2 blocks away from me in a really nice, huge loft. The wine tastings take place in the living area and a door in the back leads to his bedroom and bathroom. We arrived about 10 minutes late and there were 6 other people there for the class, 3 couples—2 from South Carolina and 1 from Australia. It was a 65€ course (he didn’t charge us) and we got to sample 7 different types of wines and champagne.

Afterward, the four of us went to a really cute, very French restaurant next door. Grapes ordered a few bottles of wine and we spent the next 3 hours talking and eating… it was a lot of fun. Then he took us to this trendy club called Favela Chic (on Wed night it has more of a lounge-y vibe) and we hung out there till around 2:30am… finally Grapes and I left (Ali and Sofia were meeting friends at a Latin club in Bastille) and walked home together. Before I went off in the direction of my apartment, Grapes asked for my number and said that he would give me a call to meet up again sometime. It was actually a really fun night—Grapes is quite the entertainer, I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time.

During dinner we started a discussion about relationships. Someone brought up B and Grapes was saying things like, “You shouldn’t be with him. I can tell he’s not the kind of guy for you. You’re too good for him. You can’t really like him. You guys should break up, just be friends. You’re missing out on getting to know other guys who would be better for you”. I just thought it was funny, like why would he be trying to convince me to break up with my boyfriend… and secondly, he doesn’t even know me. Where he got all these ideas about who I should and shouldn’t be with—or got the audacity to imply that I should be with him—is beyond me. Then around 10pm, B sent me a text message asking, ‘So… how was the wine?’ and when Grapes saw me looking at my phone he was like, “Who are you texting? Your boyfriend? Don’t write him back”. But the thing is, I realized that night how much I really like B. Grapes is hilarious and smart and successful and cultured and cute… and definitely much more my type. But he’s not B. And at the end of the day, B is the guy I want to be with. So as great as Grapes is and as much fun as I think we would have if we got together, I guess it just wasn’t meant to be—right now, I’m all about Mr. B :o)