To not want to go out to dinner on a week night?

[Anna8888]

We get endless invitations to dinner parties on a week night. While we manage to fend many of them off, some people are so persistent that we end up having to accept. I don't want to go out at 8.15 pm, eat dinner between 9.30 and 11 pm and not get to bed until half past midnight on a week night when we have to get up for work/school at 7 am. It KILLS me, and the dinners are unbelievably tedious.

AIBU?

hullygully - yes, in England it would (the wife is English btw) and my English side thinks I should do that.

In Paris is it totally off limits to talk to someone you haven't been introduced to or been frequenting (ie seeing outside school) for at least six months. Even more so when that person is a man and you are a woman.

Ok, either run up and snog him or just politely hand over a well-wishing card in total silence.

Really, Anna and CD, just get a room1

or even a room!

How on earth do they all manage to get their affairs going under such stringent circs?

Although not THAT different to here, have to keep explaining to an American friend that when an English person says "Oh, you must come round," they mean in about a year.

Ce n'est pas ennuyeux, c'est tres interessant.

I have lots of French rellies in Paris, I shall ask their advice (tho they are more bohemian than haute).

I find it interesting. Like that slightly trashy book - Le Divorce?

what a hilarious gossipy guess who i might know but im too cool for school to talk ya know

hell i talk to everyone at nursery,on basis that we drop our children off and have a shared experience.

certainly don't get constipated pontificating about the etiquette or alleged gaucheness of initiating a simple "how is your wife and new baby conversation"

Last year (first year of school) all the non-French European/North American mothers (there are also ROW non-French mothers but they behave differently) were all chatting away after 5 minutes, we all became friends, all know each other etc.

It took me about 6 months to get chatting to the French mothers, and I was the first by a long shot.

When I worked in an office full of French people, we didn't exchange more than a "bonjour" for months unless we were on the same case team. It is just not done here and if you talk to people "too soon" and are too forward you burn your boats and will never make friends with them. People's notion of personal space is different.

ROW?

Oh yes, I read that book Le Divorce some time ago - I can't really remember it though. I've read quite a lot of those "chick-lit in Paris" things and they never really do it for me, no-one has really quite nailed it yet IMO (or maybe I should read more of them ).

Rest Of World - ie Japanese, Indonesian, Brazilian etc

Oh, Johnny Foreigners.

Maybe things have changed in Paris since I lived there, but that is the biggest load of bolleaux I have ever heard. I was always making friends with French colleagues and being invited to them, they being invited to mine, etc. I really can't believe that it takes 6 months to start talking to them.

No. But there are definite parent segments at school:

• Anglo/European mothers
• ROW mothers
• Desperate Housewives Femmes au Foyer Désespérées
• Bourgeois dual career couples
• Media celebrities
• Desperate-for-kids-to-learn-

English

• Hors course (this is my DP's unflattering description )

and they all behave differently...

get a room?
Are you suggesting that Anna and I should go and shag each other???

Christ on a bike your life is complicated
I'll talk to anyone me
fuck etiquette

Where did you work, Freckle?

My SIL is married to a French man. My BIL's fiance is French. Both completely normal like us.

I just don't get this stereotyping of other nationalities.

Um, in various places. Why?

"Both completely normal like us."

Or perhaps "Just as mad as us."

What is normal? There is no normal - people do not behave in the same way from one culture to another.

Because behaviours are pretty dependent on the culture of your industry / social circle.

Well it didn't take 6 months for us to get to know them. Or their families.