Transcription

• Speaker #0

  guess what i'm moving country again i don't know maybe a year maybe more where's home home's everywhere i'm an expat hello it's pauline welcome to a new episode of meet the expats today i have multiple guests and we'll be talking about love and dating abroad and to start I am with Laurie who's French and lived a little bit abroad and she organized the pitch dating night so she's going to tell us about pitch dating what's the concept and a little bit about love abroad. Hi Laurie how are you?

• Speaker #1

  Hi Pauline yeah I'm very good and thanks for having me I'm really happy to be able to be talking about that yeah dating is. pretty much everything in my life yeah you made it your job yeah i made it a bit of my job like yeah like hosting this event of course but at some point i don't know if i told you about that but i've been um working a bit as a love coach on dating apps too so like really helping people to create some good bios and pick up the like nice photos and also writing like blinds and all that so i'm really yeah dedicated to my stuff so you

• Speaker #0

  It's fine.

• Speaker #1

  What's the best pickup line? To me, there is not a real perfect pickup line, but for sure it's important to be able to have been investigating the other's profile to figure out what could be in the picture, like a bit of a clue or a bit of something different that could be a good creating a bit of an approach. Like, I don't know if there is a poster in the background or if she's wearing a specific necklace or anything that could be a support for a specific question and a bit more...

• Speaker #0

  adventurous or unique one than all the others yeah hey how are you yeah what's up hello there all that all that thing okay and yeah well i'll let you introduce yourself and tell us what pitch

• Speaker #1

  dating is yeah correct so yeah my name is uh my name is laurie i'm 38 years uh old and um And I've been... adapting because at first it was like a US concept, an American concept, the pitch dating. It's a dating event, a live event open to everybody, like both single or already in a relationship. And you come to assist to this kind of event where it's very experimental because you can come on stage to pitch one of your single friends with like a bit of a PowerPoint presentation. So it's a bit halfway between stand-up and also a bit of the startup culture. So yeah, you have to figure out a proper way to be pitching your friend, like what is unique about him, what is universal about him, and using some graph data and charts, like a bit like a pitch sales deck, sort of the presentation for a startup, for example. So it's really...

• Speaker #0

  Making it visual and fun.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, visual and fun. And the thing is that like it's divided into a couple of sections. You have like the presentation is lasting like I would say three to five minutes. And then you have a Q&A part where anybody in the audience can be asking any kind of questions to the single guy or girl. So it's a very interactive and funny part when you can have some very nice chat and be asking any kind of weird question or question. It's very a lot of fun. I think. Yeah. I don't know how you felt about it when you came to.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, it was nice to see that there were interactions coming. There was always questions, more or less interesting, more or less fun. But yeah, people were actually going along with the game and actually...

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, definitely. This interactivity is key and also to feel good because you can feel a bit scared also to be on stage. It's stressful. Yeah, it can be a lot of stress. And actually, it turns out like usually everybody has a bit of sparkle in the eyes and we're happy to...

• Speaker #0

  experience that and to to yeah to have taken the risk to be to be a bit outside of their comfort zone yeah and it gets you away from a screen to yeah so meet new people even if it doesn't lead to a relationship you just open up your network a little bit exactly you don't have the same approach like the idea was definitely to be like

• Speaker #1

  at the opposite of the dating apps where everything is like very flat and you have a bunch of pixel and everybody's saying yeah i like eating I like travel and I love jokes. yeah of course you have jokes the idea is to make that alive like really and to entering someone's life through the lens of his friendship or her friendship and and also a bit of nevrosis sometimes so yeah it's getting to know someone with like very very specific point of view and it's making me it's more alive and more likable also and more willing to ah i want to know that guy i want to know that girl yeah so did anyone go on dates after that event yeah yeah yeah it happened yeah yeah that's nice actually i would say one of the french edition it was very nice because you could like both peachy so it was like a girl that who who was preaching and a boy and they kind of had a bit of an interaction too because she asked him some question also when he was on stage So you could tell that there was something in there already, even before the end of the pitch. And at the end, I got a text from the girl saying, yeah, you can add another kiss. Because usually I do a bit of a chat, like a recap of how many slides, how many kisses, how many couples do we have. So she was like, yeah, you can put a plus one on your how many kisses did we have since the launch of the thing. And they went to axe throwing. I don't know if I said that. Oh, excellent. So it was, yeah, very fun. Very fun. Very cool. Yeah. Some of them went to, they didn't know, but like two different pitches went to the same weekend. But they didn't know they were both invited by a friend of a friend or something like that. And they discovered that they were invited actually in the same house and the same weekend. So they had a bit of a fling there too. And in Toulouse, we had like an official couple. So it's like, it's been two months that they are together. So that's cool. I'm waiting for like, I can't wait to hear about the first baby.

• Speaker #0

  First pitch deck baby. Yeah,

• Speaker #1

  that would be lovely.

• Speaker #0

  Very, very fun. And so moving on to the subject. Yeah. Topic of today, love life abroad and dating abroad. Can you share a little bit of your experience and what differences you saw culturally, depending on countries, nationalities?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, so it's only, it's purely, what I'm about to say is like purely subjective. So maybe I will say some stuff, but it will be probably just my own experience. I wouldn't be able to say, yeah, every country does that, every guy was like, okay. Same thing that I don't want to be saying all guys are the same thing. Same thing for that part. I had the opportunity to be living in London for like eight months, eight months, something like that, just before COVID. And I had like an amazing time there. and like in the first few days I was there I set up my I remember that I was setting up my dating profile on tinder and I definitely remember quite well what I've been putting in my bio it was something like I just moved to London and I'm still emotionally in that regard I'm still emotionally a bit weak something like that so and also you should you should go for it right now until like just before I turn into a basic again something like that so it was a bit of a a joke about like yeah show me your stuff because otherwise i'm just just a parisian and i would be a good nightmare to you so it was a bit of a joke for for a start but it yeah it worked pretty well um and from what i remember is like mostly what i discovered over there i didn't date it that much of um really pure english guy but actually what i discovered the most were more like the the Scandinavian guy. So I've been dating a Danish. guy a Danish guy for like two or three months and also and I end up having like a long lasting relationship with a Swedish guy that I end up leaving that's mostly what I can say but what was really to me like for sure a bit of a surprise and also very nice to me it was like how Scandinavian guys were like yeah into gender equality that I could tell that that showed like obviously and they were they had like a very you it was so natural to them that you can really tell the difference. It was, yeah, like very organically working for them, the way they were treating you, the way they were talking to you. They were like talking about, I don't know, work life. And also in regard like the sex life too was something very, you could tell that it was quite different from the more Latin version of that, which can have also some very nice advantages. And yeah, but I could really tell that it was different. In a way also, there were like those two guys who were arranging their flat too. It was so minimalistic and to me it was so strange. And also, yeah, I remember going to the bathroom with the Danish guy and nothing was in the bathroom, even like not a toothbrush and something like that. I was like, what's happening? Well, like nothing, nothing, pretty much like no drawers, no clothes and nothing. I was like, what's happening? What is your life? Is it like an empty house, like an Ikea? an Ikea fake warehouse, something like that. And yeah, and also this, and to me, it's very, very good idea to fight against divorces. It's to have like two separate duvets. I don't know if you say that.

• Speaker #0

  Oh yeah, in Germany it's the same. You have two separate duvets. Same bed, but two duvets. You fight for the cover.

• Speaker #1

  And for me, it's like, wow, it's a miracle. It's definitely something.

• Speaker #0

  I think that and two mattresses.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, and to me it was magical. I was like, oh, you guys are genius. Yeah, to me it was really fun. And living, it's not like truly first date thing because I've been, what I remember. quite well was when I was dating this Swedish lovely man it was mostly when we have were on the day-to-day basis it was more like his respect for rules like he was really dedicated to be respecting rules and I could tell like if we were like I don't know we were I remember that we were at the beach at some point and could I like at some just like one minute from the other he was just so ready to go and he didn't want him to push me to it he was like he knew that the clock was, yeah, it was time to go to pay for the parking. And he did that and he wouldn't miss any kind of minute. He was already a bit stressed, like, we need to go, we need to go now. And he was like, it's so sweet. And it was also so French. We said, yeah, we'll see. Let's see what happens.

• Speaker #0

  We'll beat an hour, it'll be okay.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, it's fine. And for example, listen to all that. And I remember also that at some point we were traveling back from Mexico and we had a connection flight that we were about to miss. And I couldn't stand the idea of that fighting to get the flight. I was like, and he was like very peaceful about it, like just scrolling on his phone. And I was like, okay, I'm sorry. I will be doing something very French. Yeah, I know that it would probably hurt your feeling and you will feel a bit of disgust at some point, but I want us to catch this flight. I will probably be crying, be doing a bit of drama, like rolling, like skipping the queue in a very awful way. But yeah, we're going to get that flight. And I remember like to me, it was the most impressive expression of how culturally we could be.

• Speaker #0

  different in that way yeah yeah it's funny how you really although you're not traveling and you're not in each other's culture you're really feeling their own culture and it's funny how the first couple of things you said about the nordics around that respect for gender equality it's something known in the nordics around uh how people are brought up and that they're the most advanced in terms of gender equality and it's crazy that it transpires that much yeah you

• Speaker #1

  wedding relationships by every pore they're like they were awake before they will walk before the world even existed for us so yeah it's so it's so surprising and i also i i think about it sometimes i recently went to the laundromat when i was in the u.s and i remember in france like what we would do in the laundromat was like being very careful about where we put our stuff because we would like being spying on each other and to be sure that no one would be like basically stealing their stuff and the once he told me yeah in in sweden obviously you would never be stealing anybody's things yeah and even if someone will like forget his stuff in the drawer of course you will be like folding them for him for him or her when he come back and i was no pushing this extra mile is too much to take this extra so yeah to me it's it's yeah i think it's wonderful to be discovering that about other people

• Speaker #2

  Hey Hey, how are you doing?

• Speaker #0

  I'm good, how are you?

• Speaker #2

  Good, good, happy to be here.

• Speaker #0

  Thanks, so what is your name?

• Speaker #2

  I'm Alex, I'm from Belgium, I'm 20 years old, I've been living in France and Paris specifically since November of last year.

• Speaker #0

  Okay,

• Speaker #2

  so it's almost half a year.

• Speaker #0

  Almost half a year, great. And you come from Belgium, alright.

• Speaker #2

  so what actually i'm i'm not really from belgium i was born in romania i lived in romania until i was 10 having a short term life in yemen for one year oh wow impressive then went to belgium when i was 10 studied there and lived actually just lived in belgium my parents lived in belgium then had a short story in south korea okay and then uh sometime in taiwan okay so now it's big Big,

• Speaker #0

  big expert life. Yeah. All right. Well, tonight we're at the pitch dating night. So have you dated a bit in Paris and do you see differences to other countries?

• Speaker #2

  I think it's complicated. I think I did date in Paris, but not, you know, like dating is such a loaded word. For me, it's more about have you been flooded in Paris? Yes, I've been flooded in Paris. Have you been in Paris? Well, I don't know. Do people date in Paris or they just flirt to the point of just making a relationship?

• Speaker #0

  So define a date for you.

• Speaker #2

  I think a date is this... This situation that people are in, where you feel that there's a connection, you know that something serious is about to happen, and it already happened, you just didn't accept it yet.

• Speaker #0

  And so, then why do you mean that in Paris you go from flirting to relationship, but you don't have that in between?

• Speaker #2

  I think here in Paris, people are very conscious of dating, and dating is scary. Like, you know, Paris is so diverse, so... the moment you start dating you made a choice and when you choice you kind of renounce something and paris is so full of opportunities and it's hard to settle yeah yeah you can't sell so you kind of sell at the last moment it's like you kind of go down

• Speaker #0

  a hill no not the hill like into a cliff okay and you break at the last time and you and that that's when you decide okay i'm going to the relationship or i'm done exactly exactly i think that's the move

• Speaker #2

  That's the move. I think that is the maybe more expat life in Paris because I think there's a huge, huge difference between French people dating and expats dating.

• Speaker #0

  Okay. In what way?

• Speaker #2

  I really think French people here in Paris, there are two types of people. Like the real Parisians who have their own intimate group of friends. Okay, yeah,

• Speaker #0

  for sure.

• Speaker #2

  Who it's like this impregnable fortress. So if you want to date a Parisian person, like presenting you to her friends is like worse than family.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, you've got to be accepted by the entire group. Exactly. Or you're not in.

• Speaker #2

  And then you have the expats. And when I'm saying expat, it's not only like the international ones. It's like actual people who, actual French people who are coming out of Paris.

• Speaker #0

  Oh, so you call them expats.

• Speaker #2

  I think so. I really think so. Like, you know, like they always say, France is not Paris. Paris is so specific.

• Speaker #0

  Oh yeah, completely.

• Speaker #2

  So, so specific. So I'm meeting some people and I know some people who are not from Paris who are French and they come here like it was a whole new country.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #2

  So I think it was more about that and so yeah. And I think like in Paris there are so many expats. I am air-coding this. I call like all the non-Parisians. I can't call everybody non-Parisians. And non-Parisians is all about meeting people. Yeah. because the Parisian they need to make their new circle yeah absolutely the Parisian circles are so close yeah they're hard to penetrate for sure so yeah so I think dating in the out of Paris sphere yeah can be quite easy because everybody wants to meet new people like the reason why people come to this city is for new people new culture yeah and so on and jobs and jobs yeah being you Belgian I have a job in Belgium so alright cool any funny dating experience um damn funny or like tragic comedy if you want to call it um no i think it's more about all these mixed signals and then you believe something becomes awkward like like this yesterday actually um i was planning a trip with someone and we have to make a team of 10 people so i was asking around just asking around And there was this one girl who like, we're kind of interested, we're flirting, but we're not flirting. She's Parisian, of course. So actually I was like inviting her to come on the trip, but like with no intention. And she tells me yesterday, we haven't talked in four days. So she, so he's like, oh, I'm available for the weekend. And I was thinking, oh. damn she wants to do a date for a weekend yeah i was like you want to go on a weekend together like uh like this weekend like it's sebasti day it's 14 of july three days weekend i was like is she trying something and sadly i have to work on this weekend so i was like damn that's too bad i already wanted to see you it's uh i know it's a long weekend he was like no no no for the trip and i was like oh man uh okay well uh see you on the trip then oh yeah So that's it.

• Speaker #0

  Miscommunication. All right.

• Speaker #2

  Cheers.

• Speaker #0

  Well, thanks. Well, thanks for being here. Yeah,

• Speaker #3

  of course. Thanks for having me.

• Speaker #0

  What's your name? Sadra. My name is Sadra. Okay. And where are you from?

• Speaker #3

  Originally from central Pennsylvania, been in France for 15 years.

• Speaker #0

  15?

• Speaker #3

  Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  Oh,

• Speaker #1

  wow. So are you one of those here to stay?

• Speaker #0

  Maybe. Maybe.

• Speaker #1

  I'm in the process of getting citizenship.

• Speaker #3

  So once I get citizenship,

• Speaker #0

  you have options.

• Speaker #1

  Exactly.

• Speaker #0

  Nice.

• Speaker #1

  Exactly. Okay.

• Speaker #0

  So 15 years. Yeah. What's day? dating life been in France?

• Speaker #3

  Wow dating life so I've actually been paxed before okay which is like civil solidarity common marriage kind of thing um that was a moment uh date I say that dating the French is the French like treat romance like they're studying for final exams really yeah they they cram it all into three weeks and then they end up cheating anyways so you know I've dated French guys before. Um, they're not my type. I've dated guys from different. um countries ethnicities here religions like paris is a big melting pot at the end of the day so it's been it's been a whirlwind yeah okay and so what would you say are the biggest differences between the french and others and others others or internationals and others the rest of the world so i i i've been on a streak of dating american guys and american guys they have a slow burn to them right right you really have to act like you like sports or you love their friends to get them to pay attention to you but okay over time i find that they're more genuine whereas french guys they bring you in and they introduce you to their family and their friends right away it's so quick and then more intense fast super fast yeah super fast but it's not this deep intensity it's just this is what we do like you meet the family you go on vacation with me we do these things we go through the steps but the the commitment isn't there yet the like the love hasn't really grown yet so it fades away very quickly is what i find okay you think it fades away faster then yeah because with the american guys anyway it's um it takes them a lot to be like okay we're actually gonna be monogamous or you're my girlfriend or whatever it is that you're searching for to say like we're together okay so by the time you get there it's it's good committed yeah they've probably been dating other people they've you know said like okay i want to commit to this person i want to find out where this goes whereas french guys they kind of go all in right away and then they they pull back very quickly but so i've always found that a little bit weird being french um seeing the american side of you

• Speaker #0

  just said it like they probably dated other people yeah how does that as a french person i feel like that would almost be considered as cheating you interesting as a french person yeah because i'm used to that well either we commit straight away or we just don't sure but if you commit if you're it doesn't matter what country you're from if you commit but then you end up cheating on the person three months in is

• Speaker #3

  that isn't that worse isn't that worse than well yeah i guess getting to know the person for three months and dating around a little bit and then saying you know what i'm actually not into that person i'm really into this person. I prefer this one. Yeah. I want to like go all in.

• Speaker #0

  So it's this more in this case of taking things a bit slower and still scoping options for a while before you say, okay. Yeah.

• Speaker #3

  Cause like as you're getting to date somebody, I feel like it's really good to have other options out there so that you, if you're on a date with someone, but you're constantly thinking about someone else.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah.

• Speaker #3

  Well, you know, you probably shouldn't be on a date with that person, right? Yeah. If you're on a date with someone, but you're also kind of seeing someone else on the side, but you're not thinking about them at all. That's also a good indicator it's a sign right like that's kind of what that's what dating is okay yeah so see see the options before yeah yeah the french just go in like way too fast way too intense a bit too scary so so intense like meet the family go on vacation and when i was younger and i was sitting here i was like wow this guy's really into me and then it took me a long time to realize like no he's just french okay that's how he does things all like this okay but i had this date um with an italian man okay that was the worst day ever why Okay, I was younger. I was in Naples with a friend. She left early. I hopped on Tinder. I just like organized a date that night and we went out to this restaurant. He was very intense right from the get-go.

• Speaker #0

  I feel like the Italians can be there. That's there.

• Speaker #3

  So intense. So intense. Yeah. He was like decked out to the nines fashion. He's like, I'm gonna take you to the best restaurant in the best neighborhood. We're gonna order the best wine. It was just like so much. I'm like, this is a Tinder date. I don't live here. What's going on? He proceeds to watch this woman walk to the restroom as we're having dinner and kind of does the ass check.

• Speaker #0

  Okay.

• Speaker #3

  I don't care at this point because it's a first. Exactly. Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  You're on a holiday. You're not.

• Speaker #3

  I'm just having fun, right? I'm like, let's enjoy this meal together. And I just challenge him and I say, what are you looking at? And he said, her heels.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, right.

• Speaker #3

  And I said, what about her heels? And he said, they're too short. And I said, what do you mean? And he said, they're too short for that dress. And I said. how tall should they be and he said listen women over 20 should always have five inch heels on and i said why is that and he said because it keeps their pussies tight no way and i said what about women what about women under 20 and he said by the time you're 12 you should be wearing three inch heels all the time i swear to god and i said Well, why does it matter if our pussies are tight? And he said, because it gives you a better orgasm. I said, let me get this straight. You're telling me that from the time I'm 12 years old, I need to wear three inch heels. And when I hit 20, that needs to go to five inch heels so that I can have better orgasms. I don't think you understand how the human body works.

• Speaker #0

  At least he's trying to.

• Speaker #3

  been it as a value for you that's the only thing i see but no no absolutely that's the worst that's the worst part about it he's like this is for you he just wants to watch a woman walk by in high heels i'm like you are the worst he's like so can i come over i'm like absolutely not i'm not wearing heels sorry it's gonna be too spacious for you even having dinner with me it's awful it is a pretty awful date oh italians just a whole nother dimension