These truths are international.

To start with I am a 27 year old surgical physician assistant. I attended a medical conference in Lyon, France and then added on a vacation to the French Riviera for another week. If you haven’t been, do your best to get there. I traveled between Nice, Cannes, Marseille, and Monaco and luckily was able to watch a prelimary Grand Prix race from a hotel rooftop (George Lucas was there too). The following day I took the train to Cannes for the Film Festival finale and was able to get some great, up-close videos of Stallone, Tarantino, and Banderas. More on that later.

The finale of the Grand Prix was on Sunday and as I am a PA, not a surgeon, I was unable to afford the outrageously priced tickets to watch from the track, or a yacht, obviously. Instead, I walked around at the top of the hill where the Monaco church is that Grace Kelly was married and buried. Upon exiting, I see one of the most gorgeous brunettes I can recall ever seeing. Of note, the elite models of the world travel to this part of France for the film festival and the race so my standards had been set high over the past several days. She was dressed in a bright pink romper which exquisitely complimented her tanned skin. It was impossible not to stare. I hadn’t felt the need to introduce myself to any of the other girls I had seen that day, but this girl seemed to be traveling alone and I was particularly drawn to her.

The palace was extremely busy on finale day. I started walking towards her but despite her highlighter dress, I lost her in the crowd. I looked for another minute but gave up my search. Hamilton went on to win the race as expected and I returned to my hostel in Nice. Keep in mind, there are many hostels and hotels in Nice. I showered and washed the day off me, got a change of clothes, and headed to the common area to grab a beer. As I was sitting on a couch and staring straight ahead reminiscing on the race, something caught my eye. A bright pink romper walked right beside me and into the restroom. The quote from Casablanca immediately came to mind. What were the odds of her walking into my hostel? Extremely low, as I later came to find out, since this was not even the hostel she was staying in.

While I was waiting for her to finish up, I had to remind myself that I’m the fucking man. Something we all should do daily.

“You were at the palace today, right?”

She looked slightly taken aback. As gorgeous up close as I had expected, but looked slightly wary and possibly even nervous. I tried to appear less suspicious so I told her how a romper that bright couldn’t be forgotten. I decided to leave out the part about her body being unforgettable as well.

I told her I had just returned from the race and was staying at the hostel for one more night. This seems to calm her nerves and she told me she had just stopped in for a few minutes. At the train station, two French men kept approaching her and made her feel very uneasy so she told the police and headed into the hostel until they had moved on. This explained her nervousness when yet another stranger approached her. We got to talking and I learned she was from Mexico City. I shared with her my videos from Cannes of the movie stars I had seen. At this point, any readers hoping for a soft-core porn field report should stop reading.

Unfortunately she was leaving for a train in thirty minutes. She seemed nice enough after she had warmed up to me. She didn’t add anything much of interest to the conversation even though she was engaged. Something I am becoming more accustomed to when having conversations with the majority of women. Nonetheless, I asked to exchange Instagram information (a number for someone abroad is useless) and she obliged. She took my phone and clicked follow on her account. I glanced down at her account and luckily remained emotionless. Despite her beauty, I was still surprised to see a link to her IMDB page and six-figure follower account...

I have kept in touch with several women I have met while traveling and on a small number of occasions it has led to a future short-lived romance. So I try to keep my options open with my expectations low. We parted ways since her train was leaving in thirty minutes and I went to get a bite to eat. As I was finishing up my phone buzzed.

“Hey. I’m looking for you!”

I would be lying if I didn’t say my confidence didn’t shoot through the roof that second. Due to her train leaving so soon, I didn’t wait too long to respond and I told her my location. She said she wanted to come see me for a few more minutes before she left. I have fortunately internalized enough TRP wisdom to not jump at this and go run to her. I decided to finish my meal at my own pace and told her to come meet me since the restaurant was close. Her communication ability was limited due to needing WiFi at the hostel. She said she would try to come if she could make it in time. I continued eating my meal. As I expected, she did not show. I made a two block detour on my way home to see if she was still at the train station. She was not there and I had missed the 10:30 train by 5 minutes.

The next morning, I woke to a message saying how she was sorry she couldn’t make it. Then came the low blow.

“Do you think you could send me your Cannes Festival videos by email?! Since we can’t Airdrop them anymore?”

That explained it. The feigned interest. The urgency. I immediately knew why she wanted those videos given her blossoming Instagram and film career. I played ignorant though and told her my videos weren’t anything spectacular and was wondering why she wanted them. She said she just really liked them and wanted to remember how nice it looked so she would go back sometime. Then, as a supposed afterthought, she said she is making a video of Europe and wants to put those clips in her video...

I weighed my options and since I had nothing to lose by sending her the videos I still did it. Since sending, her messages have dramatically decreased as I expected. She got what she wanted.

What is the point of this long story? Here are my takeaways.

  1. Travel. You never know what will happen on a trip or who you might meet.
  2. Outcome indifference is key. The practice of stoicism is essential and the fact that I went up to the girl in the first place is a win in my book.
  3. Fame and beauty only takes a girl, or any person, so far. I met significantly more interesting girls on the trip that weren’t nearly as attractive.
  4. Everyone wants something for themselves. I can’t blame the girl for why she was trying to get any more than she can blame me for trying to sleep with the hottest girls possible.
  5. My mistake was feeling more confident after she messaged me. This one is tough, but if a man can develop this amount of baseline confidence instead of using his success with women as a scale, it can take him places he never dreamed of.