How I Met My French Boyfriend

Hey Au Pairs!

Have you ever pondered the thought of meeting a potential someone while au pairing? It can happen! I’m sure you’ve met various au pairs who’ve found a romantic partner while living abroad. Even I met my current French boyfriend while living abroad!

To learn more about how I met my French boyfriend keep on reading!

Once upon a Tinder…

It all started when I moved to the city of Valladolid in Spain to teach English and decided to download Tinder. My hopes in downloading this app was truly to make friends! I had no interest in looking for a romantic partner, but was open to the idea of perhaps meeting someone special.

After about a week of swiping I matched with a French Erasmus student who was studying abroad for a semester. We texted a bit back and forth before meeting up in person for the first time. Once we met we hit it off instantly! It was effortless to talk to him and we discovered we had a lot in common. We spent over eight hours together the first time we hung out, talking from the evening into the wee hours of the morning! Time really flew by and I looked forward to seeing him again!

Making it official

After that first meeting we began to go out together at least once a week. I then realized my romantic feelings growing stronger every time we’d see each other. I was definitely into him, but didn’t know how he felt about me. He was kind enough to me, but didn’t give me any signal that he wanted anything beyond a friendship with me.

I did tell myself that I was grateful to have at least made a friend through this Tinder experience, but I was curious to find out how he felt. So, one night after grabbing drinks he walked me home and I asked him if I could kiss him. Surprisingly, he said yes!

We then talked about where we stood and if we were going to be exclusive. In his eyes, we were exclusive the moment we kissed whereas, I needed to have the “what are we ” talk. Apparently he told me that in French culture the moment you kiss it’s implied you’re exclusive-this shocked me! He also mentioned that in French culture people don’t typically go on one on one dates, but group dates so to him it was OBVIOUS that was into me because he was going on solo dates with me and not group ones. I certainly learned a lot about what dating was like in French culture and he learned about American dating culture as well!

One year later…

We recently celebrated our one year anniversary apart due to the pandemic, but we are happier than ever. I never anticipated meeting someone so important and near and dear to my heart on Tinder, but it can happen! I even spent my summer au pairing in France so I could be closer to him for a few months!

At the moment I find myself working and living in Spain and he’s based in France where he’s searching for a job to launch his Engineering career as he recently graduated. I do miss him terribly, and we are both hoping to plan our next move so we can be together physically. Maybe it’s the romantic side of me, but I know in my heart we will be reunited soon and everything will fall into place!

Have you ever fallen in love while abroad? Let me know in the comments below!