Some Social Situations in France

There’s not a lot of small talk

The French are a bit standoffish, in my experience. Very pleasant for the day-to-day basics, but it takes a long time to get to know people here. Folks are friendly and polite, but don’t disclose much about themselves. Sometimes, this seems like the most normal thing in the world and other times, it is really quite odd.

It has a different feel. A lot of Americans will talk to strangers. Small talk is a kind of an American thing. Other places just don’t do it as much. France is one of those places.

Thanks for reading Keith’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

At the same time, if I am among strangers, I’m more likely to make light conversation and keep it simple than to start talking about my life.

If you’re not fluent in French, you’re not going to experience a lot of the social elements of France. That only makes sense to me, but I think that dropping into different places as total strangers, obviously foreign and not so good at speaking the language, people hang back. That makes sense to me.  

Small talk seems rare, but people have been incredibly friendly, if only after having seen me in the same place a few times.

New York is pretty social. People talk to each other, but not always.  And while there are the occasional oversharers or narcissistic types, most folks aren’t like that.

This happens to me a lot, but it’s also more about the language than cultural differences.

I’d imagine there is a percentage of French people who over share. I think people just assume I won’t understand, which is probably right.

I don’t know a bunch of people’s names that I see all the time

I think this is my fault, but I am not sure. I’ve met a lot of people and only about half of them have told me their names, which is almost a relief because remembering names can be tricky.

I've had lengthy conversations. I have seen them many times over the course of months. I have no idea what their name is. I don’t know if they ever told me.

This looks like:

"Hi, I'm Keith."

"How do you say that?"

They might spend a few minutes working out how to pronounce my name, but then no introduction. My name is a little bit hard to pronounce in a lot of languages. I tell people it's not like kiss or quiche or keys, but it's close to some of them. I don't mind being called quiche. It's easier.

"Oh, OK. Like Keith Richards or Keith Haring or someone like that?"

"Yeah, exactly. And what's your name?"

“I really like Keith Haring’s art.”

“Oh yeah – and you are…?”

No response, subject change.

“So where are you from again?”

Then we wound up talking about New York,  some vacation they took or a trip to Florida. A lot of people I have spoken to want to ride Harleys on a tour of the West or Route 66. No idea why, but 4 people described this to me at 2 different parties. Maybe they thought I knew something? Like all Americans have guns and motorcycles and the like…  

I am really used to a name exchange, I’ve come to realize.

I never learned their name. It’s been about dozen times at this point. I'm beginning to think it's just something that French folks do, at least in this town.

Not really connected, but an example of oversharing

I met a guy at a bar one day and we got to talking about nothing special. Within half an hour, he told me he was into trans women “as long as they still have the meat and two veg.”  

Huh. Well, alright. I forget what else we were talking about. It might have been car repair or boat repair or something.

The trans girlfriend is not what’s odd here: it’s the guy’s specificity. He might have just said “girlfriend” or “partner” or whatever and left it at that. I think it would be strange if, within 20 minutes of introducing myself, I said something like, “Hi, I’m into women and my wife has a vagina. And I like those.”

But my god, people do.

I’m sure she’s lovely, but it’s a general lack of discretion that I find off-putting. If someone is going to talk, I am going to let them. I actually enjoy awkward social moments. I think they’re funny.

Thanks for reading Keith’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.