Cultural Narrative 3 - Men of Paris

I suppose anywhere you travel, you are bound to meet a plethora of people; some nice, some rude, some interesting, some awkward and so on.  I have been trying to figure out the whole “Men of Paris” deal ... Thus far, my only conversation with new men here seems to revolve around teasing American girls in a friendly way, or deliberately being rude.  

This past week after going out to dinner, a small group went up to the Sacre Coeur to enjoy some champagne and the scenery; there were three different groups of men who approached us.  

As the cork to our champagne popped off a guy behind us yelled, “Nice shot!” ... in response we yelled back, “Merci!” ... the man was not pleased.  He came over to us asking which of us said “merci”, next asking us if we were from France, and if not why would we speak French back to him when he was speaking English?  The situation was very rude, as we were only trying to be friendly and polite and his response was extremely aggressive.  He was so angry with us in fact, that we had to blatantly as him to leave.  

Soon after this, three other men approached us.  These men seemed much more friendly, though they did enjoy teasing us a bit.  The first man came over referring to us as Brittany Spears, Shakira and then pointed to me saying Mariah Carry.  Not being able to understand their accents very clearly, I responded, “Why do I have to be the scientist?” (I thought he called me Marie Curie).  After a bit of conversation, they began speaking in French, and I was able to utilize the small amount of the language I know.  Finally he asked our real names, beginning with Heidi ... I responded for her: “Elle s’appelle Colette”.  

French Guy: “Elle peut dire son nom.”

Me: “He wants you to say your name.”

Heidi: “Colette”.

It was pretty funny.  This went on for a little while longer as they asked me in French how long we had been there and what we had done earlier that day.  The men seemed nice enough and I was happy to put my French to use.

The next night we met up with my friend Faiz and some of his friends from Paris.  I was chatting with his friend Hedi who asked me what I thought of the French men.  I told him about our experiences earlier that week and he was very surprised ... He was disappointed that they would treat American girls this way asking, “What’s the point?” After discussing this for a bit we talked about places we have visited in Paris so far, places he thinks we should make it to, what we are studying and what I plan to do when I get back to the states.  It was nice to finally have a conversation with a Parisian man that had more depth than pointing out American stereotypes!