Had a disappointing Valentine’s Day? Some French expats know exactly what you mean.
Source: Fed Up with Being Single in NYC, Some French Expats Head Home – French Morning
When I was teenager and confiding in someone, I said something to this person about how “dating is to find a mate for life, after all,” and he reacted like I said something incredibly intelligent. I looked at him blankly: “You’re joking, right?” He said not everyone makes that connection. As much as I respected him, part of me thought he was wacko. I thought it was obvious.
Now that I am older, I believe I see what he was talking about.
The above article from French Morning talks about how some French singles relocated to New York City for career advancement and who believed, reasonably, that they would find an American to settle down with, but who got so fed up with the singles scene in The City That Never Sleeps that they have packed it in and returned to France. Sure, they understand that just returning to France doesn’t guarantee they’ll find someone to love, but as Maud, a 32-year-old French woman put it so succinctly, “In France, the men that I meet will share my values, my culture, my codes.”
Intriguingly, it’s what the article doesn’t talk about that caught my attention: French people seem to have a much stronger expectation of marriage than Americans do. Regardless of what the statistics say in both countries — I am all-too-aware a skilled person can make statistics say whatever they want — articles like this one paint a picture whose canvas cannot be denied: French people want to marry, or at the very least, be in a committed, exclusive relationship, as opposed to being in several non-exclusive relationships at once.
Though perhaps non-exclusive dating is found mostly in big cities like New York. A psychologist cited in the article specializing in human sexuality, Professor David Buss, believes that when there is a surplus of women — or even a perceived surplus — “the whole mating system tends to shift towards short-term dating. Marriages become unstable. Divorces increase. Men don’t have to commit, so they pursue a short-term mating strategy. Men are making that shift, and women are forced to go along with it in order to mate at all.”
He believes modern technology — dating sites — only reinforces the surplus idea. I wonder: Is it that there seems to be an endless supply of women on dating sites, or are Americans so obsessed with their phones that their relationships suffer? Perhaps both?
I can only say this: As an older, single, American woman, seeing people so engrossed in their smartphones that they nearly walk into traffic is not a step in the right direction for American culture. Nor is surfing the internet rather than talking to the person you’re with having a latte with. Is this part of America’s problem? Are we so engrossed in technology that we miss noticing the available man or woman sitting nearby? Sounds like a script for a modern sit-com: A man cruises dating sites on his smartphone while an available woman sits next to him, wishes he would talk to her, and she eventually gives up and leaves.
A French couple wait out the rain at Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris.
I certainly haven’t seen French citizens, smartphones in hand, nearly walking into traffic or brick walls. Let’s hope technology won’t take over the City of Light Love and start playing cupid. I’m no expert, but somehow, that doesn’t seem very French to me.
Au revoir!
Blue Bar Silo by Jason Kuffer, Flickr, CCBY 2.0. Under the Rain by Vincent Anderlucci, Flickr,
CCBY 2.0.