French people are different from American people. The longer I live in France with a French person, the more I see this truth.
Take bathroom habits for example.
In a French household, the door to the little room that houses the toilet must always be closed.
Always.
I can't tell you how much confusion this causes when my American daughters come to visit.
Who even thought consciously about this before?
In US culture, a closed bathroom door means "occupied", right? Well not here. This little signal is unavailable because you must always close that door. This then leads to an annoying wave of hesitation each time you need to go to the bathroom - is there someone in there or not? If the door was just left ajar there would be no question.
See how easy and sensible that sounds?
Lunching with a co-worker a few weeks ago, we began sharing war stories of living with Frenchmen. She happens to also be from California and has been married to a Frenchman and living in France for over 20 years.
I casually mentioned that French people have some strange "bathroom" habits and before I could explain what I meant, she interrupted me with -
"You mean their obsession with closing the door to an empty room?"
So its not just my French man.....
As it happens in our house, closing that little door is even less simple because our apartment is over 100 years ago and none of the doors close properly. Closing them entails multiple slammings and jigglings of knobs. All the noise this produces is not that big of a deal in the middle of the day but at 2 am - that's another story.
My Frenchman usually remembers when he is up in the middle of the night that the door doesn't close easily and reasonably just leaves it ajar without forcing the issue.
But every once in a while he reverts and goes into a fit of banging and slamming .
His son however has never learned. Cultural training evidently runs very deep - no matter how long it takes, Paul, will slam and jiggle until that damn door is closed tight. Such perseverence!
Another thing about bathrooms - anyone who has ever visited France knows that finding a public one is close to impossible - and once you do, they're not free.
You know how in the US there are public restrooms everywhere? Don't take this for granted! In France, you have to go into a cafe and buy a cup of coffee to be able to use the restroom.
Maybe the lack of public facilities is due to some kind of conspiracy by French cafe owners to sell more espresso...
My Frenchman says no - he says it is due to the fact that France is a Catholic country.
Huh?
Apparently going to the bathroom is somehow connected to sex and sin in the eyes of the church and therefore needs to be discouraged.
I'm not sure that this is actually true but it would also explain the closing-the-door-to-the-empty-room thing. When you pass down the hall, if the door is closed, you can pretend the toilet doesn't even exist and if there are no restrooms in the malls and stores, the whole issue can be ignored in public.
Seems really silly doesn't it?
I told you the French are different.
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