Moto Man

Place du Tertre, Paris 18ème

Last Friday night I agreed to accompany my friend Sarah to a soirée at her friend's apartment in the 18th arrondisement.

The 18th arrondisement in Paris is known for a number of things; the Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, the Place du Tertre, the Moulin Rouge, cute little streets and somewhat shifty characters hanging about. However when these last two elements combine, as Sarah and I experienced, it can be an unpleasant mixture - that is of course until you are saved by Moto Man!

So we were on our way to our soirée in Rue Lepic - an incredibly cute street which winds around what seems to be the entire 18th arrondisement. We had already looked at the map and were ready to make our way there from the metro when suddenly we were spotted by two dodgy men. These disgusting men, who hang around tourist areas trying to find poor unsuspecting females to harrass, heard Sarah and I speaking English and decided they had found their next target. Being thrown off by the sleazes, we took a wrong turn, however we were determined to continue on confidently, without checking the map again, as we knew that Rue Lepic was definitely not far away. We were being followed the whole time by our 2 admirers, who quickly turned into hecklers when they realised we were ignoring them. There's something about walking along the street with a girlfriend, minding your own business, being followed by dodgy men who yell obscenities at you and refuse to let you out of their sight, that screams FRANCE to me. It is the horrible, yet somewhat true, stereotype of Paris which thankfully, I don't come across as often as I did when I first arrived here. So as we walked along and tried to pretend as though we couldn't hear the abuse that was being yelled at us, quick-thinking Sarah saw a man in the distance who she decided she would ask for directions. Lucky for us it was Moto Man!



Moto Man, as the name suggests was the owner of a motorbike, and therefore had a helmet on as we approached him. To our pleasant surprise, when he took the helmet off, Moto Man was also incredibly hot. So Sarah went about asking for directions, to which he was ever so helpful, giving us a detailed description of exactly how to get to Rue Lepic. Realising that we weren't French, he asked us if we were trying to get to the Amelie cafe (as the cafe in which Amelie works in the renowned film is also in Rue Lepic) to which we replied that in fact we were just trying to find our friend's apartment. Meanwhile our stalkers had crossed to the other side of the road, but were patiently waiting for us to finish our conversation with Moto Man, so that they could continue following us. So Sarah decided to tell Moto Man that in fact, while we had taken a slightly unwanted detour, we weren't really lost, but were just trying to escape our night stalkers. Moto Man then kindly offered to accompany us so that the crazy men would leave us alone. Touched by this sweet gesture, we walked with Moto Man until we came to his apartment, he told us to come inside the foyer area to make it look like we were going to his place, so that the stalkers would give up hope. He then apologised for not having an apero for us, as he would have invited us up otherwise. We thanked him for his lovely help and left his place, back on track for Rue Lepic but this time without our visitors (Moto Man's cunning plan had worked).

And so, as another friend Ann pointed out, the moral to this story is, if you want to find a sexy man in Paris who will invite you into his apartment, you firstly need to find a dodgy looking stalker (much easier to come by in Paris) and pretend that you're lost - and voilà - easier than we thought!

So thank you to Moto Man for adding a lovely element to our Friday night and for restoring our faith in French men!