In Defense of the French Man

A few years ago, when I was young and spewing generalizations like glitter dust, I penned this article about French men. It was a little stupid and oozing with clichés à la “French men don’t shower but are good in bed! Just hold your nose!” And yet, it somehow managed to climb the Google search rankings, sparking a mini-debate in the comments section that is sporadically enriched to this day. It appears that for every reader lamenting about her Frenchman dating nightmare, there is another one celebrating her French partner as God’s gift to the planet. Neither POV is wrong.

Since analyzing Frenchies is in the DNA of this blog, and because I have been dating one of them for seven months now (woohoo!), I feel like I have the moral obligation – and authority – to give you my updated assessment of the topic. If I sound biased at times, forgive me. Love makes you do crazy things, Frenchmen defense included.

I will flip this and start with the conclusion: French men are not for everyone. In the most banal of analogies, they are like French food – often, too much. They are difficult. They are moody. They are supremely opinionated, a quality stemming from the country’s individualism-driven education system. They are proud to a fault and cannot stomach the idea of being criticized or called out on their bullshit. In France, there is an expression “tête à claques” – this, literally, means a person who deserves to be smacked. Every French man is a potential “tête à claques.”

I say “potential” a-in fear of homicide and b- because a Frenchman (like any man, really) needs to be channeled. Juste un petit peu coddled. Slightly babied. Never attacked. Rather than reprimanding his faults, you must try to understand him, along with his weaknesses and insecurities. You must be sensitive to them. You must occasionally swallow your burgeoning pride and walk away from arguments, change the topic, lighten the air. I am in no way advising you to become a pushover – you will not tap into any respect there. Just learn to pick your battles.

If tuned correctly, the Frenchman will deliver to the height of his potential. You will end up with a fantastic, sensitive, intelligent guy who will make all your bro-dating girlfriends swoon. If you fail to follow these guidelines, you will quickly be buried under a missile strike of ugly arguments, just like I had been with every Frenchman prior.* Yes, I realize that I am dishing some unpopular advice in our neo-feminist era. But the French are late adopters, what can I say?

*Please note that I did NOT change for this relationship; there is also such a thing as COMPATIBILITY involved. 

Recently, three friends sent me a NY Mag article entitled “My Failed French Dating Experiment.” The author, an American expat in Paris, recounts going through a slew of Frenchmen, only to find the local notion of love to be far too removed from her own. She wanted more “emotional togetherness,” more intimacy, more sweatpants-clad cuddle time. She wanted to be  “best friends” in every sense of the word.

In some of her observations, she was right. No, you probably won’t be able to be your most unabridged, barbaric self with a French guy. You won’t be able to walk around with un-brushed teeth until mid-afternoon, or discuss your bowel movements, or depict the depth of your period cramps. You will always need to keep a certain sheen – for the sake of the romance, the mystery, the sex life. But you will also never need to don explicitly “sexy” outfits, or get breast implants to cater to porno-inspired fantasies, as is often the case with Americans. Also, do you really expect everything from your romantic partner, face mask parties included? You dreamin’, girl. Go listen to some Esther Perel and land back on this planet. (She’s French, btw!)

More importantly, here’s what the NY Mag writer really got wrong. You will be best friends. I know this because the only real guy friends I ever had happened to be French, and because I’m most definitely on BFF basis with my boyfriend. (Although, let’s check back on this after I publish this post.) As sensitive people themselves, French men tend to be rather emotionally evolved and understanding of human nuances. They will ponder your emotional turmoil with you and ruminate your problems with you until dawn. French men won’t ignore you or tune you out for football. French men will listen.

And yet, curiously enough, they won’t always be able to vocalize their feelings, a phenomenon stressed by many a commenter (and confirmed by our Frenchman advisor in his post!) While extremely forthright in the beginning, they tend to shut down a bit as the relationship evolves. Perhaps, this goes back to the cultural rejection of dating – but they are, essentially, allergic to anything that sounds remotely like “The Talk.” To understand how a French man is feeling, you may need to probe less and observe his actions more: his commitment, his reliability, his follow-through. In the (rare) moment that a Frenchman is silent, his actions may be speaking for him. If he loves you, he will show it – and it might be far more romantic than you ever imagined.