American girls like to kiss boys.
We do. We kiss boys at parties, at clubs, on dates, in movie theaters, we kiss our friends. Kissing doesn’t mean anything. It’s fun!
But in Paris, ce n’est pas la même chose. I learned something kind of crucial yesterday, a European standard that is actually kind of amazing. Here it is…
If you kiss a boy in Paris, it means something…….
I know what your thinking. “It means something in the States too!”
Nope. You can go out with a boy for an entire month, you can go on dates, he can come over to your place for dinner, you can introduce him to all of your friends, he can even bring you soup when your sick! But unless you become “official” he’s aloud to do whatever the fuck he wants! Sure you can get mad. But he’ll just throw a line like “But I never said we were exclusive!” at you and he’s in the clear.
Our dating system is the product of our consumer society. We want more. We like to pick and choose. “I like this for right now, but I also want this, and perhaps I’ll get some of this later”.
In France (or in most of Europe apparently), people do not go on “dates”. Dinner and a movie? Cut the bullshit and get to the good stuff. You either like each other or you don’t. And if you’ve kissed then your going out. Plain and simple. Perhaps you’ll only go out for 2 weeks. Perhaps you’ll go out for a year and a half. But your going out. There is no picking and choosing.
Of course you have the players who’ll fuck you over before you can say “je m’appelle ...” But their cunning and swift moves are pretty easy to spot and are alluring in an unusually charming way (French men are usually terrible flirts…)
Otherwise, it’s a very straightforward system. It’s actually quite wonderful.
Finally, a girl can allow something as wonderful as a kiss to mean something!
