The Two-Hour Goodbye
I am definitely slowing down, because ever since arriving in France, when Iโm out and about, as midnight approaches, my head starts rolling back toward my neck, which I have to make an effort to snap back when Iโm ร table or at a party with mes amis franรงaiss. When I was younger, I regularly stayed awake until 2โฆbut usually 3am, with friends and co-workers, drinking wine, bowling, or just watching tv after work, unwinding with the bakerโs favorite dinner: A big bag of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa. Times have certainly changed, and now by 11pm, Iโm ready to brush my teeth and hop in the sack, exhausted from another day of this constantly challenging thing called โlife.โ
Iโm not much of a social animal, as people whoโve tried to corner me have discovered, which (judging by some of the awkward situations that Iโve found myself in), proves Iโm not all that great at socializing. A lot of it comes from being squirreled away in the back of restaurant kitchens for thirty-five years, where it seems most conversations are about food, sex, cooking, sex, our lack of sleep, sex, who makes the best salsa, raunchy jokes, sex, and making sure the dishwasher is on your side. Because if not, they can really f**k you up. (And believe me, they will.) Nowadays, though, my biggest concern at night is simply remaining vertical.
When you go to a party in France, be it a dinner party or a get-together of another kind (even a rendezvous at a bar or restaurant), leaving is simply pas possible. Okay, itโs not impossible, but the process can take a good two hours or so. At restaurants in France, itโs considered rude to give someone the check before they are ready to leave. So people will linger as long as they want. (And they like to make sure that they do.) To me, it seems to be rude to be the first person to suggest leaving, even long after youโve finished up. From the looks I get when I suggest getting the check and settling up, itโs like youโre telling your friends, โIโve had enough of you. Timeโs up.โ And no one wants to be that person whoโs the first to make a move toward leaving. Because no one wants to be the spoil sport, which seems to fall on my shoulders.
Parties are even harder, as thereโs no crowd of people clustered at the bar, waiting for your table. (Although most Parisians are pretty good at being oblivious to people waiting behind them.) Because I donโt want to be known as always being the spoil sport, I will brave it out until itโs become a Herculean effort to keep my eyes open, and my head starts dropping and rolling around like itโs going to come off its axis. An hour later, after Iโve started the process of leaving, when Iโve finally made it to the door, after weโve put on our coat and gathered the rest of our belongings, thereโs the inevitable final goodbyes.
I was probably the only person in Paris to bemoan when the mรฉtro decided to run an extra hour on the weekends. In those days, no matter what was going on, no matter how long (and long-winded) someone was, someone would invariably jump up and announce they had to leave to catch the last mรฉtro, and others would hurriedly follow suit. Going to a dinner party, I knew there was a definite time-line for the evening, and that I would be in my favorite place in the world โ home, and horizontal, in my nice comfy bed โ not long after midnight. And after years in professional kitchens, I have learned to value each and every second of when I can be horizontal.
In spite of thinking of themselves as free-thinking individualists, Parisians collectively respected that dernier mรฉtro hour because they knew how impossible it was to catch a taxi late in the evening, especially on weekends. And I remember waiting in long, long taxi queues, bundled up behind twenty or more people, shivering in the cold, waiting as taxis came one-by-oneโฆat irregular intervals, to pick up passengers. Services like Le Cab and Uber changed the landscape, but offer their own challenges. Mostly because in order to use them, you need to commader a driver on their apps. Once you do, and they say theyโre coming, you need to be ready & waiting when they arrive. So if you hit that โRequestโ button and youโre standing in someoneโs doorway, ripe and ready to leave, and people are debating some obscure topic likeโฆ.
Me: Thank you for the lovely evening. Dinner was great and it was nice to see you.
Them: Thanks, how are you getting home?
Me: Weโre taking the metro.
Them: Oh? Which metro?
Me: Line 13.
Someone Else Who is Getting Ready to Leave: Is that the one that passes by the Pompidou Center?
Me: No, itโs not. (At this point, a few other guests gather โround..)
Another Person, Also Getting Ready to Leave: The Pompidou Center? Mais oui! There is a good exhibition of 1950โs ink blotches there.
Another Guest (Not Ready to Leave, but Not Wanting to be Excluded from A Conversion Where They Can Get Their Word/Opinion In): I saw it, and itโs not bad. But there is a better exhibition at the Musรฉe Branly on Mayan symbol-removing devices, that they offered the gods during the sacrifices, when they made a mistake.
(At this point, my head being lolling back, again.)
My Other Half (Somewhat Oblivious to the Difficulty I Am Having, Keeping my Eyes Focused): Mayans? There is a pizzeria near me called Mayan.
(At this point Iโm wondering why anyone would name a pizzeria โMayan,โ since pizza has nothing to do with Mexico, or Mayan culture. But Iโm so tired, I let it pass.)
Our Host: Iโve eaten at the pizzeria and itโs okay, but there is a pizzeria in the 10รจme that serves pizza like they do in Naples, although you can get a pizza with canned corn on it, too.
My Other Half: Have you been to Naples?
Our Host: Yes, we went last year. It was okay, but we prefer Sicily.
Another Guest: I just finished a book by a Sicilian historian, a 4381 page tome on the mores of Persephone. Have you read it?
Yet Another Guest: Ah, I have that book on Persephone on the pile of literature of my nightstand, which Iโm planning on reading after I finish the books on top of it by Camus, Focault, Voltaire, and a few comic books. She was the daughter of Zeus. Wasnโt she?
Guest #3: Daughter? Yes. And by the way, my daughter is graduating from high school soon.
Our Hostโs Wife: Your daughter is that grown up? I havenโt seen her in years.
Guest #2: Oh really? Well, weโll have to plan a get-together. What is she studying in school? Is it still the late Greco-Roman algorithm for the angles that they built the stairs leading up to their temples?
etcโฆ
Because itโs France, everyone wants to get in that all-important last word, which can prolong the goodbye at least an hour. Maybe two. Meanwhile, youโre smartphone is dinging and vibrating away in your pocket, and your driver is pulling away because you donโt want to be rude and interrupt while people are debating pizza, Italian cities, or comic books.
Like everything in the world, at least according to commentators on a certain news-style network in the states, this maybe can all be blamed on the media. The French have television shows that go on for hours, literally, where people talk and talk and talkโฆand talk and talk and talk, while audience members sit behind them, perched on backless benches, listening to them intently. (A friend of mine was in the audience of one and he described the experience as agonizing. Which, in the name of diplomacy, Iโm going to assume he was referring to those backless benches.) In America, people tend to speak in short sound-bites, no doubt moderating their discussions and cutting them short to make room for the copious amount of advertising. Another cultural difference: Iโve never seen a commercial for something like โgoing commando,โ in France, which I saw the other day in the states. Which I sincerely wish I hadnโt.
Another difference is that in Paris, youโre required to say goodbye to everyone, personally, looking them in the eyes, before leaving any fรชte. Even if you havenโt really talked to or interacted with someone, you need to go and shake their hand if theyโre a man, or give them les bises (the kisses), if itโs a woman. Although sometimes with women, you shake their hands if you donโt know them very well when greeting them or saying goodbye. Unless youโve talked to them for an unspecified period of time at the party. But sometimes, you do bisou women when you meet them, if youโre a man.
If youโre a woman, generally you bisou other French women when meeting them, whether you know them or not in social situations. But men shake hands, in business and pleasure. Although some men bisou each other, depending on how well they know each other, often in family situations but it happens with close friends and you kind of need to use that few seconds upon greeting to size up each and every situation and figure out what approach youโre going to take in that split second as youโre leaning forward to say goodbye. Confused yet? If so, youโll be glad to know that there are French charts out there to help.
[Chart Source: Combien de Bises]
As you can see, much depends on what part of France you live in. Sometimes you make les bises up to 4 times, although according to my Parisian partner, twice รงa suffit โ or, is sufficient. (The chart actually says it can go up to 5, but Iโve not seen or experienced that. I could imagine if you had to bise fives times when leaving a party, if there were fifteen people in attendance, youโd be responsible for a whopping seventy-five kisses. Iโd need to start getting ready to leave around 9:15pm.)
Some people throw ya for a loop by starting with the opposite cheek. I start with right cheek to right cheek but have done some awkward nose bumping with people who do the opposite. (Iโve not determined what determines which side you start with.) With that, I gotta go because Iโm exhausted just thinking about it. And Iโve got a few more hours before I can pieuter, or hit le sac.
