This is a photo I took of a typical French man.

European males have an uncanny knack for searching, finding and tormenting american females. It’s worse in the southern climates, but French men are certainely not exceptions to the rule. But what is particularly interesting is watching older men flock to younger women.

My ICRP buddy Amanda and I went to a schindig put on by the university for which we worked. We sat near our two bosses at dinner, which turned out to be quite an event. One of our bosses’ friends started to chat Amanda up, and he was making sure that her wine glass was refilled often. It got weird, however, when he asked her to stand up and sing. I can’t describe the look on her face when he stood up and addressed the entire room of four hundred people for song suggestions.

It was around this time that a man from another table (who had had his eye on both the proceedings and the young american) came over to offer Amanda some help: he understood that she didn’t want to sing, so he said he would shout whatever she wanted him to. I haven’t figured out what to call it yet – it certainely isn’t chivalry – but for some reason this guy stood up and told the entire room “LETS GO PARTY!!”

image provided courtesy of flickr.com user lesmode