Marc's Party

This was en event that deserved it’s own proper blog entry. This past Saturday, I went to a party where I actually knew no one. Not a single person. Perhaps I should explain the premise…

When my dad was in business school, he was very good friends with a guy in his class who was Parisian. For the sake of privacy, I wont tell you his whole name. But I’ll refer to him as Messieur P (M. P from now on…). When my dad told M. P that I would be in Paris for a semester, he told his 26 year old son, Marc. So, Marc texted me on the second day that I was here (I had no idea that anyone had my phone number, so when my phone went off in class, I looked around for the guilty party. I seriously had no idea that it was me, I’m sure that I was convincing enough that my professor didn’t think it was me).

So, Marc’s text (which was in English), said that he was having a party on the 19th at his apartment, and would love if I could go.

I had to think about my very rigorous social calendar for all of 4.2 seconds before texting him to say that I would love to go.

So, finally, a week and a half later, the day finally came for me to go to Marc’s party. I had been at dinner with my family friends who were in town for the weekend, and it was a lovely dinner. So I was basically moving from everything that I was comfortable with, to a situation where I actually knew no one.

I take a taxi to Marc’s apartment. He gave me the code to get into the building, and I was super proud to buzz into his apartment building. Then came the real problem- I had to use the box to call up to his apartment- and I had no idea what number that was. I frantically checked the code, which had no resemblance at all to an apartment number. Luckily, there was kind of a directory, and I found ‘Marc P’, and called up to his apartment. He let me into the stairwell. Once I was in the stairwell, there was still a problem about which apartment was his- but I followed my instincts and went to the loudest one I could find (it was pretty rowdy). I took a deep breath, reminded myself that this is a good way to improve my social skills, and rang the doorbell. It was promptly answered by a middle aged woman, behind her I could clearly view what looked like a family reunion. I painfully explained that I was searching for the party of Marc P., and she told me that it would be on the top floor.

After I got over the embarrassment of having gone to the wrong apartment, I finally walked up to Marc’s apartment (on the 7th floor). I rang the doorbell, and was let in…. but not by Marc. Everyone in the room turned to look at me, and I awkwardly stood by the door. Eventually Marc came out from the kitchen, so I could figure out who he was (having never seen him before). He gave me some champagne, and pushed me into a group of his friends.

There were three premises to this party:
1. it was a party for his friends from high school to meet his friends from work (kind of awkward to begin with)
2. it was for couples.
3. Everyone else was between 25-30 years old

And it wasn’t a dinner party- it was a combination of wine and cheese, and an adult version of a kegger.

I met about 15 different French people, many who were really nice, none of whom spoke English.
All his friends from high school thought that I was a friend from work, and all the friends from work thought that i was a friend from high school. WHAT UP. They all asked me how I knew Marc, and I had to explain that this was actually my first time meeting him, that our fathers had been friends at university while in the US. I met his best friend (who was really nice), and spent the majority of the night talking to his best friends wife (who also didn’t know anyone. So we sat together and talked about university life).

Marc was a good host, so he kept floating around the party, trying to talk to everyone or about 5 minutes. By the time he finally got to me, it was about halfway through the party. And I actually got to get to know him a bit. He’s 26, works for Kraft (the same one we have headquartered in northfield), he’s studying to take the TOEFL and GMAT, and wants to go to business school in the US (like his dad). He asked me about Northwestern, and it was clear that his parents had given him the same kind of info that my parents had given him about me.

He had done some facebook-age (apparently I still had open profile set for the france network… oops). He asked me about my marriage- MY MARRIAGE TO CAROLINE CORBOY. (he couldn’t see who it was to, which made it a bit easier to explain).

(this was not supposed to be my daily shout out, but ceece- here it is. You got mentioned at the party. Feel special!)

Yes, he asked about it. So sorry ceece, but I had to take that down. We also laughed about our earlier text message conversations- he had attempted to text me in English when he didn’t know I spoke French, and I had used ‘vous’ instead of ‘tu’ a couple times, stuff like that.

I ended up staying about 2 hours, I left around the same time that his sister did (not the first, but not the last. I wanted to be polite). But that’s how I spent my Saturday night-

At a party where I actually knew no one, not even the host. And I actually had a good time, and generally people were really nice to me.

Gros bisous,

Margarette