Just frown and go...

So, Paris being the city of romance and all that rubbish (and it’s true that it’s difficult to cross the Seine without having to march past slobbering, snoggering couples every five metres), you might naively think that young lusty Parisian men have a perfectly honed seduction technique. Well, maybe they do, but not in the Paris I seem to live in, where strange old men find it perfectly acceptable to approach young women they do not know and try their luck in the vain hope that one day, oh but one day, they might actually get more than insulted in return.

I stress, this does seem to happen ALL THE BLOODY TIME here. Just last week, in fact, a complete stranger found it perfectly acceptable to invite me to sit next to him at my own bloody picnic, before attempting to stroke my legs. GET OFF ME! But that was just a dip in the strange man ocean. It really hit its peak back in mid-March; evidently the Official Week Of Strange Men Approaching Catherine in Paris.

Firstly, a tramp approached me in Charles de Gaulle RER station, and – rather sweetly – said ‘ça va, petit rayon de soleil?’ (‘how are you, little ray of sunlight?’) and then, as an after-thought, perhaps reflecting that he had not been complementary enough, added ‘qui brille’ (‘which shines’). However, before you all start ah-ing, let’s remember that he was a smelly old drunken tramp, so I chose not to thank him and flirt back, but instead marched off to the other end of the station, frowning. He shrugged his shoulders, graciously accepting defeat and mumbling ‘c’est la vie!’.

Then, the next day, in Gare de Lyon RER station (are we sensing a pattern here?), as I was happily standing on the escalator, glad of the rest as I’d been on a two-hour walk with some friends, a random man stopped by my side and asked me if he could stand next to me on the escalator. Sorry, what? Stand next to me on the escalator?!? What, so we can jointly admire the scenic view of a 1970s underground train station, with an interior decor possibly inspired by the blue-tiled look of a swimming pool changing room? Um, now let me think… So obviously, I said ‘non’, which obviously he took to mean ‘mais oui, bien sur Monsieur’ and so he just stood there next to me, half-smiling, half-gurning at me - which, might I suggest, is not the most effective flirtation technique - and I had to frown and march off again. My oh-so-tired legs were not happy.

By the time strange man number three approached me in front of a department store, my marching away whilst frowning technique was perfectly honed, and he didn’t even have time to get past ‘bonjour Mademoiselle’. Ha!

Anyway, my all-time favourite weird man approach-tactic (with the poetic tramp a close second) remains the young man, sporting an interesting rainbow-striped hand-knitted jumper, who tried to trick me into talking to him, by shouting ‘Bonjour, bonjour’ at me in the street, in such a way that implied that we unquestionably knew each other already and just hadn’t bumped into each other for a while. For a second, he really confused me and my brain went ‘Who? What? Rainbow? Huh? Oh weirdo! Get marching! Frown!’ He gets full marks for ingenuity, though.

Voila. Come to Paris, city of love and men with no social skills.

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