Chloé, 28

I’m Chloé, 28, marine biologist, professional mermaid (unofficial title), and Marseille girl through and through. I grew up in the Panier, Marseille’s oldest neighborhood, in an apartment where you could hear the port from the windows and smell bouillabaisse on Sundays from three floors down. My father was a fisherman, my mother a school nurse, and the sea was basically our third parent. I learned to swim before I could write my name properly, and my childhood summers were spent on the rocks of the Calanques, hunting for crabs and pretending the sea urchins were treasure.

People ask when I fell in love with the ocean, and honestly I can’t remember a time I wasn’t. At fourteen I did a school project on posidonia — the seagrass meadows that are the lungs of the Mediterranean — and I never looked back. I studied marine biology at Aix-Marseille University, spent a year in Banyuls-sur-Mer doing field research, and now I work with a marine conservation association in Marseille, monitoring water quality, tracking dolphin populations, and running educational programs for schoolkids. Some days I’m on a boat at dawn counting fins; other days I’m in a classroom with a bucket of seawater, watching eight-year-olds lose their minds over a starfish.

My work is equal parts science and stubborn optimism. The Mediterranean is under pressure — plastic, warming water, overfishing — and some days the data is depressing. But then a kid tells me they want to be a marine biologist because of my workshop, or we spot a pod of dolphins off the Frioul islands, and I remember why I do this. I also volunteer for beach clean-ups, and I’ve developed strong feelings about single-use plastic that I will share with you at length if you let me. You’ve been warned.

Marseille shapes everything about me. This city is loud, warm, chaotic, and impossible not to love. My perfect weekend: an early hike down into the Calanque de Sugiton with friends, a swim in water so clear it doesn’t look real, then a long lunch of grilled fish and rosé at a cabanon by the water. Evenings mean apéro on a rooftop or at the Vieux-Port, watching the boats and arguing about football (I’m OM, obviously, and I take it personally). Sunday mornings are for the fish market at the Vieux-Port — I know the vendors, they know my father, and the gossip flows as freely as the pastis.

I’m sporty without being intense about it: I swim year-round (yes, even in January, yes, it’s freezing, no, I won’t stop), I hike the Calanques most weekends, and I’ve recently taken up paddleboarding, mostly for the spectacular falls. I cook a decent bouillabaisse — my father’s recipe, which he finally wrote down for me last year after decades of “un peu de ceci, un peu de cela.” My apartment is full of shells, field notebooks, and a slightly feral rescue cat named Sardine who rules the place.

As a person, I’m direct, warm, and fiercely loyal. Marseille people don’t do lukewarm — I love loudly, I argue passionately, and I forgive fast. I need sun, salt air, and honest conversation like I need oxygen. I laugh easily and I’m told I have a “contagious” enthusiasm for things I care about, which is everything from octopus intelligence to the perfect socca.

What I’m looking for: a partner who loves the outdoors and isn’t afraid of getting sandy. Someone kind, curious, and up for adventure — who’ll hike to a hidden cove with me at 7 a.m. and stay for sunset without checking their phone. I don’t need you to be an athlete, but I need you to say yes to things. Bonus points if you can handle my strong opinions and my tendency to lecture strangers about recycling. I’m dreaming of shared sunrises over the water, muddy hiking boots by the door, and a love that’s as deep and a little wild as the sea I grew up in.

Last summer I led a beach clean-up at the Calanque de Sormiou with forty volunteers, and we pulled two hundred kilos of plastic from the coves in a single morning. Exhausting, infuriating, and weirdly joyful — we ended the day swimming in the cleanest water and sharing a giant picnic. Moments like that keep me going when the data looks grim. I also started a little tradition with my closest friends: every full moon, we swim at night off the Frioul islands. Floating on your back under the moon, the city lights twinkling behind you — it is the most peaceful I ever feel. Sardine, my cat, waits up for me. She pretends not to care, but she is always at the door.