Café Marseille

I was having a beer in Marseilles with a friend of mine. It took us a while to a find a place which served stout, the French not being known for their love of beer. While sitting on the patio enjoying a Guinness, my buddy remarked that the women in France all look like women.

It took me a second to get his drift, but then I nodded in agreement. Both of us are originally from Canada (he blathers on about having English parents and a UK passport, but he's about as English as a beaver), and we're used to seeing North American women. When travelling to Europe, you're struck by just how different the women are.

I know, I know, of late I have become the anti-woman bore, or many of you seem to think so, judging by the letters that I get. I'm not anti-women at all, and really can't explain why I've been thinking about the fairer sex so much. Maybe I've just got women on the brain. It would be nice if they were on something else, but the brain will have to do, and I guess you're going to have to put up with it.

In any event, my friend is correct. French women dress like women, walk like women, and act like women. In short, they know they are women. They don't act, swear, and dress like men, knowing full well that true power lies in their their femininity.

They carry themselves in what an American would consider a snobbish manner, but they aren't snobs at all. They're just women. They know the men are watching, and want the men to watch, but God help you if you get caught up in their trappings. Behind those tight pants, flowing skirts, and Armani sunglasses, you will find a calculating creature that will love you to death if she is pleased, or stab you to death with her eyes if, to borrow from Queen Vicky, she is not amused.

I've had girlfriends tell me that they hate European women. They dislike the way they flaunt their sex, using it to their advantage, using it as a weapon. As if this were something unnatural?

Women north of the Rio Grande are a terrible disappointment when it comes to the mystery and the allure of woman. Yes, the French chick at the bar in the black turtleneck smoking the long cigarette might be a snob. But there is something sexy as hell about women that can stand alone at a bar and not once - not once - look around the room. Sheer confidence. Like a cat. Utterly disinterested in what you have to say or who you are...or might she be?

This as opposed to, say, the sexy allure of a chick from Kamloops wearing droopy denims when she shouts, "Canada kicks ass. Whoooo!" and then punches you in the arm harder than a lumberjack.

Don't get me wrong. Partying with Canadian and American women is fun as hell at the nightclub, but they just look wrong at the cafe. It's not their fault. That's North American culture. Sometimes you see women trying to ape it (NY, LA, Toronto), but they can't bring it off with the same panache. You can't fake being who you are for very long before smart people see right through you. LA women might try to act aloof, but that's the whole point: they're acting. French women are aloof because that is what they were the day they were born.

Getting by that is the adventure, the rest, gravy.