I love my dîner en ville (dinning out) especially with French people. First because it is my first language, secondly because only with French people you can mix food, wine, sex and politics. I never met this situation with any other culture. Whith Spanish people, everybody will talk at the same time and the louder you can so in the end you take part to every conversation and to none, when with German people you will debate about the problems of everyday's life ; with French, you rebuild the world.
Talking about politics at evening dinner can ruin your event. When you are at the restaurant, you still have the possibility to leave (like you do at the cinema when you don't like the film). At home, if you're the host, your only possibility is to re-orientate the debate or try to cool down the fire... because we love to argue and we always think our opinion is the best and the guests should apply to it (you don't even understand how there can be another way). So before leaving the table and transforming the dinner in the coldest place ever, my advice for security purposes : avoid.
Second subject : sex. Don't think it is about private jokes you can make or you heard at the office. It is mainly about sexual experiences and how you live your sexual behaviour, but never in a slang way. Whenever the topic is on the table between "fromage et dessert", French are not afraid to laugh at themselves and you might learn new things. The best conversations are when every "group" is represented (straight, married couples, singles, gays, ...). There was once German and English people around the table who completely hallucinate with what they heard and hardly could participate (though they were asked to share) because they were too shy. We're not. Ladies can talk about their periods (ok don't bring the meat at this moment), men will talk about their fantasies and their thrills. Gays explaining to straight women what men expect in bed can be rather funny but is even funnier gays trying to explain (and ideally trying to make understand) that in bed between two men (or women) there is no woman or man. It's not a role play. It's a share. There was once this married man (unfortunatly his spouse was not there, she kept the kids at home, this is true!) who explained to us that if he does not penetrate his wife, there is no sexual intercourse. The gays explained that there are so many other ways to have sex that this guy never understood. Men debate about the fact as well that making love to a woman is "hard" work. When the woman is expecting pleasure, the man is experiencing performance. So obviously from this point there is a lot to share. Open a new bottle of wine and you'll see how far it can go.
Talking about politics at evening dinner can ruin your event. When you are at the restaurant, you still have the possibility to leave (like you do at the cinema when you don't like the film). At home, if you're the host, your only possibility is to re-orientate the debate or try to cool down the fire... because we love to argue and we always think our opinion is the best and the guests should apply to it (you don't even understand how there can be another way). So before leaving the table and transforming the dinner in the coldest place ever, my advice for security purposes : avoid.
Second subject : sex. Don't think it is about private jokes you can make or you heard at the office. It is mainly about sexual experiences and how you live your sexual behaviour, but never in a slang way. Whenever the topic is on the table between "fromage et dessert", French are not afraid to laugh at themselves and you might learn new things. The best conversations are when every "group" is represented (straight, married couples, singles, gays, ...). There was once German and English people around the table who completely hallucinate with what they heard and hardly could participate (though they were asked to share) because they were too shy. We're not. Ladies can talk about their periods (ok don't bring the meat at this moment), men will talk about their fantasies and their thrills. Gays explaining to straight women what men expect in bed can be rather funny but is even funnier gays trying to explain (and ideally trying to make understand) that in bed between two men (or women) there is no woman or man. It's not a role play. It's a share. There was once this married man (unfortunatly his spouse was not there, she kept the kids at home, this is true!) who explained to us that if he does not penetrate his wife, there is no sexual intercourse. The gays explained that there are so many other ways to have sex that this guy never understood. Men debate about the fact as well that making love to a woman is "hard" work. When the woman is expecting pleasure, the man is experiencing performance. So obviously from this point there is a lot to share. Open a new bottle of wine and you'll see how far it can go.
No comments:
Post a Comment