I met Drusilla more than 2 years ago at a Paris Fashion Week party. A fashion house had presented a show of their new line of haute couture earlier that day at the Sorbonne, the medical campus where I work, and some of us who worked there were invited to a party with the fashion people to be held there that night.
I don’t know why I was invited. I don’t look like somebody who cares about the fashion industry. For that matter, I didn’t look like most scientists with their Homer Sympson Bubble Butt Dockers pants, patterned button down shirt with a pocket protector, and big belly.
I put on a white shirt that fit and a sport coat I had bought at a thrift store because I try to avoid supporting Consumer Culture, including buying the latest style of suit sold by the sponsors of the party. I wore a Stetson hat from the desert ranch and motorcycle boots because I didn’t have dress shoes. I wore the coat I had recently found next to the corpse of a stew bum who had died from cold the night before. It was a nice coat, and I had it cleaned to kill the fleas and lice.
The party was crowded. A DJ was responsible for the music. Several bars had been set up in the colonnade around the courtyard, and staff carried trays of drinks and hors d'oeuvres.
All around were people who worked in fashion: buyers, designers, artists, models, and staff for the event, as well as some people who worked in my building. Everyone was dressed elegantly. Men wore suits or sport coats and women wore dresses and high heels. A few people were dressed like freaks, so I didn’t feel extremely out of place.
It was a refreshing change from the American culture I had just fled. The people had an air of culture and sophistication that I had rarely seen in the US. No matter where you go, one finds some people who are pretentious, but I didn’t pick up a lot of attitude that night, despite the fact that the party was associated with an industry that bases itself completely on external appearances.
I wandered for a few minutes without seeing anybody I knew. I said “hello” to a few strangers. Most people I talked to were friendly and polite. Up to this point, I had liked France, and I was happy to discover another good thing good about French culture. Had it taken place in Los Angeles and been attended by Americans, I doubt that I would have been permitted to enter. If I had, nobody would have deigned to speak to me, as has been the case in the past.
For a moment, I recollected the last American parties I had known, usually keggers or drum circle parties. Usually, when I tried to talk to someone, their response was, “Who the fsck are you, and why are you speaking to me?” That was the males. The American Women at the same venues made the men seem polite. The instant she realised I was speaking to her, the American Woman had an expression on her face as though she couldn’t wait to scrape the dog crap off her shoes that she had just stepped in. Her comment that went along with the face was something along the lines of - “you’re not fit to polish my tiara, go fsck yourself.” That was when she acknowledged me at all. I understand where civil rights leader Eldridge Cleaver was coming from when he talked about the American Woman in his book “Soul on Ice.”
Americans of my generation say “like” at least once in every sentence. Adolescents say it even more frequently. Maybe their vocabulary is so limited that “like” is the only word they have to express most thoughts. Worse, the “creaky girl” speech affectation has spread across America like a plague.
Half the people looked college age. How smart they sounded compared to Americans of the same age. I hadn’t heard a single “like” among the English speakers and nothing similar among the French. There was no “creaky girl” either.
____
In my childish ideal of love, marriage is a sacred bond, and it is the most special kind of relationship that can exist between two people. It is more important than the relationship with parents or children, even when those relationships are good. Nobody chooses their parents or their children. We are stuck with blood relatives, the good along with the bad, until they die or until we cut them out of our lives. But we choose our mate, and many go through extremes of searching and suffering before we finally find one, especially in countries where long term relationships are out of style. Anything that takes so much time and effort to make happen is to be cherished.
Marriage/partnership is faithful, dedicated, and lifelong. You respect and treat the other better than yourself. You put the other’s needs before your own. You don’t do things that hurt the other. You work out your problems and make the effort to strengthen the relationship rather than throw it away like a MacDonalds hamburger wrapper. You stick with her exclusively. One of the big rules is that you don’t have affairs or cheat.
In 2011, Neilsen Corp, an agency that collects data on American TV viewership, nearly 200 million Americans (about half the population) watched NFL football in 2011, and that figure is unlikely to have changed since then. Just as televised football viewing is a national pastime in the US, adultery is a national pastime in France. Nearly half of married French people have had at least one affair. It is significantly lower in the US. Adultery is so common that there is an unspoken assumption that cheating will happen, and both husband and wife are equally likely to cheat. No gender is the exclusive victim.
In France, there is an important rule to follow in maintaining an unfaithful marriage: one must be discreet. Adulterers keep the affair secret. They don’t let their partner know because that knowledge what would hurt him or her. Of course, they do not want a divorce either.
To those who indulge, extra-marital affairs are seen as necessary to keep the marriage alive. Maybe there is truth to this viewpoint - the national divorce rate is actually much less than that of the US, but it leaves me wondering what is the point of getting married if you have to sleep with other people to sustain a marriage with your first choice into old age.
Affairs aren’t so common in the US, especially not since my generation is for a large part opting out of marriage. Affairs sound creepy. They reek of the sleaze of the1970s and the self-indulgent pastimes of the Baby Boomers. They evoke images of swingers, wife-swapping, leisure suits, disco, scenes of the cuckolded husband coming home unexpectedly early from work to find some hairy mustache dude in bed with his wife. I can’t imagine there is any love in an affair. Maybe it is cheaper than prostitution. Like watching televised football, it’s shallow entertainment.
Despite all of that, I still believe life would be more enjoyable if it were spent with the right companion. I have a romantic image of growing old with her.
I don’t know why I was invited. I don’t look like somebody who cares about the fashion industry. For that matter, I didn’t look like most scientists with their Homer Sympson Bubble Butt Dockers pants, patterned button down shirt with a pocket protector, and big belly.
I put on a white shirt that fit and a sport coat I had bought at a thrift store because I try to avoid supporting Consumer Culture, including buying the latest style of suit sold by the sponsors of the party. I wore a Stetson hat from the desert ranch and motorcycle boots because I didn’t have dress shoes. I wore the coat I had recently found next to the corpse of a stew bum who had died from cold the night before. It was a nice coat, and I had it cleaned to kill the fleas and lice.
The party was crowded. A DJ was responsible for the music. Several bars had been set up in the colonnade around the courtyard, and staff carried trays of drinks and hors d'oeuvres.
All around were people who worked in fashion: buyers, designers, artists, models, and staff for the event, as well as some people who worked in my building. Everyone was dressed elegantly. Men wore suits or sport coats and women wore dresses and high heels. A few people were dressed like freaks, so I didn’t feel extremely out of place.
It was a refreshing change from the American culture I had just fled. The people had an air of culture and sophistication that I had rarely seen in the US. No matter where you go, one finds some people who are pretentious, but I didn’t pick up a lot of attitude that night, despite the fact that the party was associated with an industry that bases itself completely on external appearances.
I wandered for a few minutes without seeing anybody I knew. I said “hello” to a few strangers. Most people I talked to were friendly and polite. Up to this point, I had liked France, and I was happy to discover another good thing good about French culture. Had it taken place in Los Angeles and been attended by Americans, I doubt that I would have been permitted to enter. If I had, nobody would have deigned to speak to me, as has been the case in the past.
For a moment, I recollected the last American parties I had known, usually keggers or drum circle parties. Usually, when I tried to talk to someone, their response was, “Who the fsck are you, and why are you speaking to me?” That was the males. The American Women at the same venues made the men seem polite. The instant she realised I was speaking to her, the American Woman had an expression on her face as though she couldn’t wait to scrape the dog crap off her shoes that she had just stepped in. Her comment that went along with the face was something along the lines of - “you’re not fit to polish my tiara, go fsck yourself.” That was when she acknowledged me at all. I understand where civil rights leader Eldridge Cleaver was coming from when he talked about the American Woman in his book “Soul on Ice.”
Americans of my generation say “like” at least once in every sentence. Adolescents say it even more frequently. Maybe their vocabulary is so limited that “like” is the only word they have to express most thoughts. Worse, the “creaky girl” speech affectation has spread across America like a plague.
Half the people looked college age. How smart they sounded compared to Americans of the same age. I hadn’t heard a single “like” among the English speakers and nothing similar among the French. There was no “creaky girl” either.
____
In my childish ideal of love, marriage is a sacred bond, and it is the most special kind of relationship that can exist between two people. It is more important than the relationship with parents or children, even when those relationships are good. Nobody chooses their parents or their children. We are stuck with blood relatives, the good along with the bad, until they die or until we cut them out of our lives. But we choose our mate, and many go through extremes of searching and suffering before we finally find one, especially in countries where long term relationships are out of style. Anything that takes so much time and effort to make happen is to be cherished.
Marriage/partnership is faithful, dedicated, and lifelong. You respect and treat the other better than yourself. You put the other’s needs before your own. You don’t do things that hurt the other. You work out your problems and make the effort to strengthen the relationship rather than throw it away like a MacDonalds hamburger wrapper. You stick with her exclusively. One of the big rules is that you don’t have affairs or cheat.
In 2011, Neilsen Corp, an agency that collects data on American TV viewership, nearly 200 million Americans (about half the population) watched NFL football in 2011, and that figure is unlikely to have changed since then. Just as televised football viewing is a national pastime in the US, adultery is a national pastime in France. Nearly half of married French people have had at least one affair. It is significantly lower in the US. Adultery is so common that there is an unspoken assumption that cheating will happen, and both husband and wife are equally likely to cheat. No gender is the exclusive victim.
In France, there is an important rule to follow in maintaining an unfaithful marriage: one must be discreet. Adulterers keep the affair secret. They don’t let their partner know because that knowledge what would hurt him or her. Of course, they do not want a divorce either.
To those who indulge, extra-marital affairs are seen as necessary to keep the marriage alive. Maybe there is truth to this viewpoint - the national divorce rate is actually much less than that of the US, but it leaves me wondering what is the point of getting married if you have to sleep with other people to sustain a marriage with your first choice into old age.
Affairs aren’t so common in the US, especially not since my generation is for a large part opting out of marriage. Affairs sound creepy. They reek of the sleaze of the1970s and the self-indulgent pastimes of the Baby Boomers. They evoke images of swingers, wife-swapping, leisure suits, disco, scenes of the cuckolded husband coming home unexpectedly early from work to find some hairy mustache dude in bed with his wife. I can’t imagine there is any love in an affair. Maybe it is cheaper than prostitution. Like watching televised football, it’s shallow entertainment.
Despite all of that, I still believe life would be more enjoyable if it were spent with the right companion. I have a romantic image of growing old with her.
