Dating French Guys (part 2): If Only We Had Known That! 🇨🇵

Tutorial Transcript

Salut YouTube we're back it's Kate and Rosie we are back to talk to you guys about the things that we wish we'd known about Frenchmen before we got into very committed relationships with them and as we mentioned in the first video guys actually Kate she works full time just as I do but on the side she's just launched her blog which I'm super excited about which is about her expat life in France so do you want to remind people where they can find you yes you guys can find me at UnintentionallyFrenchified.com and as Rosie said it's a blog about my life in France being an expat all of the different travel experiences that I'm having and also about my favourite subject which is the top pizza restaurants in Paris I'm a big pizza fan so don't hesitate to check it out to find out where to get your next slice Yes it's down in the description box guys check it out coz she's awesome We've already done a part one to this video so if you haven't seen that yet we'll leave the link in the description box below but if you have you know what it's all about so without further ado let's get cracking on some more things that we had wished we'd known before dating these Frenchmen of ours So the first one is about politics and history and general cultural knowledge of what's going on in the world so I were coming from the US and I grew up in the Midwest definitely grew up in a little bit of a bubble so geography was not my biggest subject and what was going on outside of the US was not something that I was totally in tune with so what I've noticed since I have been dating Robin is that that is probably the topic of conversation or the highlight of conversation not just with Robin but with Robin and his friends as well if I don't read the news every day and if I don't know what's going on not just in France but also in the u.s. because everybody asks your opinion about what you think I mean right now obviously Donald Trump is like the question of the day what you think about what's going on in your own country plus your opinion about France plus your opinion about everything going on in the global world if you don't actually have an opinion then you're not part of the conversation and then you're just kind of looked at as not curious enough or not interested enough and that's a really big stereotype I don't know if it is for New Zealand but for Americans is a huge stereotype in Europe that we don't care about anybody but ourselves so that's just kind of like mmm pushes that stereotype when you don't have anything I don't know what the stereotype is about New Zealanders but I know that we live in an absolute bubble and we just care about New Zealand all the time for example when David Bowie died the headline of the news was literally like 'David Bowie found dead: the New Zealand connection' and it turned out that he had filmed like part of a music video once in New Zealand like everything's New Zealand New Zealand New Zealand and so yeah I didn't grow up really learning about Europe about current events about geopolitics I mean of course there are people that take a natural interest in it but the general mainstream population it's not at all the case and you have to be prepared with a Frenchman to be up to the play on that stuff and to talk about that stuff for the rest of your life yeah forever like because yeah my boyfriend spends probably at least an hour a day reading the news at least Robin he wakes up in the morning the first thing he does is takes his iPad and he reads everything that's going on the news for about 45 minutes then I receive updates from him and he sends me articles during the day and then when I get home from work he wants to know my opinion on the articles you have to keep keep on top of things that's like doing homework again So the second thing that we wish that we knew about Frenchmen before we started dating them is how important and how much of a priority the family unit is and this is something that's really positive we're in Paris and Niels' family are in the South so unfortunately we don't get to go and see them that often but I'm sure if they were close I would see them every single weekend yeah so Robin as I said is from Paris and so his family's actually does live here and we see his family once a week minimum I think that's also kind of goes into the whole culture of Sunday's being like a family day you know in the States like 24/7 everything's open like shopping on Sundays whereas here everything's closed and it's really a day to hang out with your family and so naturally because my family's not here We will hang out with Robyn's family and we have lunch with his family every Sunday and I agree with you it's really a positive thing lots of family time and you definitely feel like you have a community here especially since our families aren't close but I think sometimes what I find so interesting is Robyn's mother you know will go and do some things by ourselves and I'll think that I'm sharing something like maybe more intimate or something she's not aware of, I don't know, a disagreement Robyn and I had and sometimes the response I get is yeah Robyn told me about it yeah like thinking and I mean it's not really over sharing because I was willing to share it with her but I would be like really surprised - oh yeah like I've had that before like like my boyfriend sat down with me and he's been like you know I've I'm speaking to my parents about the fight we had last week and they say and that's kind of normal and so that a lot goes through to the parents you know so you better kind of be prepared that everything that you tell them well it's on the table for the family as well unless specified basically the one thing that makes it a little bit more complex for people in situations like us is that it's also very hard to take a Frenchman out of France yeah on the other side but there's definitely something more attached They're more fusional and yeah again this is not getting into society things but in the States at least when you're 18 the norm is to leave for college and you never move back home because you leave for college and you do maybe a master's and then you work but you find a job and you are an adult at that point and in France it's absolutely not the case it is completely normal to have a 26 year old living at home with their parents looking for work or working I think that also creates these fusional relationships so I agree with you Robin doesn't love his family any more than I do but I just don't have maybe as much of a fusional relationship with my parents because you know I haven't lived there for 12 years whereas Robin is much more recent - we're much more independent in that way So the third thing that we really wish we have known before dating a French guy is that this stereotype that French men way I love you after three weeks it's not necessarily true for a majority of people so ladies don't get your hopes up but don't be worried that you're gonna have a stalker in three weeks because it's not necessarily the case I think this is obviously really personal to Rosie and I and who we've been with but I still remember when Robin and I first started dating and at one point I think I don't know it had been like four months or five months and I'd moved back I said I love you and I think I got back like oh thank you I remember thinking to myself like okay you're not going to say anything, you're not gonna pressure him don't say anything and I was like and it took Robin a couple of months or whatever you know what he finally said it in his own time but I didn't have this guy who right after three weeks was taking me to the top of the Eiffel Tower and expressing his love for me and popping a bottle of champagne it was way more realistic and way more what I would have been used to in the States I think that stereotype adds a little bit of pressure because you've got the stereotype that Frenchmen are super loving and they're gonna say I love you I want to be with you forever I would die for you after three weeks and to be honest it kind of in the back of my mind made me expect it a little bit and so it would make me go into this turmoil of like it's been four months he still doesn't love me like I'm obviously not up to standard when he did say it I remember thinking OMG it's taken so long and you really shouldn't be thinking that in that moment , it's kind of sad The fourth thing that we want to talk to you guys about is the privacy paranoia thing that we do see among a majority of Frenchmen my personal experience with this is Robin's feelings about social media so Robin really uses social media and he's present on Facebook and Instagram but he thinks that what you show online is not necessarily your private life so for example his facebook photo we've been together for five years and we are and his facebook photo is a picture of himself and one of his best girlfriends hugging and what could possibly be taken as this is my wife and it's not me it's not me and so at the beginning when we were first dating I didn't want to be crazy so I didn't say anything and after a couple of years that's kind of that Facebook photo and at one point he goes you know Kate I'm friends with my colleagues on Facebook I don't want them to you know know more about my intimate life then you know that I decide to tell them and so no I wouldn't put a photo up of you and I which in some ways I can understand I mean obviously I'm like oh do you need a photo of you and another girl but it's definitely a spectrum here but I do understand that for him things are very private whereas I'm like insta stories here sure this is what my apartment looks like this is where I live here's my code if you want to come visit me yeah so it's definitely different exactly the same like as you guys know I mean I'm on YouTube I've given you guys a tour of my apartment but Niels, he would never have a photo of the two of us as his facebook profile picture he doesn't even show his own face on his picture he's one of the rear French people actually that doesn't have a fake name on Facebook because a lot of them do and the lesson here is really just don't take it personally than others shamed of you they're not trying to hide you or your relationship because for a long time when I first started dating Niels and I really wish I had known this I thought that he was trying to keep our relationship low-key he wasn't ready to talk about it to his family yet he wasn't ready to show me to his friends because it was just early days and after nine months that starts to hurt right?! so don't worry about it all it's really just a personal preference when it comes to privacy One of the last things that we wanted to talk to you about is moving in together this is generally seen as a big step for couples yeah and when I moved to France it was still I thought a big step to move in with somebody so we're not sure if this is something that's really specific to Paris or if it's something you can find in other areas in France so if you have any comments about this don't hesitate to let us know below but moving in together in Paris is something that can happen very quickly for couples and a lot of the times it ends up being something really pragmatic and if you're like me you come from a background where you know you dream about getting married one day and moving in together and all of these things that you kind of romanticize in your head and then your boyfriend of seven months is like oh you know it's really expensive paying rent for both of us and we're constantly at my place so maybe you should just move in like where was the dinner and the key that was already made? You were mean to present a little gift box with the key cut! Us as well we think that moving in together such a big step and so you can falsely think that your relationship is actually taking a really big step together actually it doesn't necessarily signify that here in France Cool guys so I hope you enjoyed that that was part two of the video series on the things that we wish we had known about these Frenchmen of ours before we started dating or marrying the Frenchman If you guys liked this series and you want to see more of us or you want to see another video with Kate and I together please let us know in the comments below let us know what you'd like us to do we could maybe do a New Zealand accent versus American accent video but I hope that this was useful for you guys and I hope you guys had fun I know that we did and until the next video see you next time - à bientôt!