Side Note: French Men

I confess I'm always a little startled when people assume that one of my goals in coming to France is to snag a French man. Because while most Americans think of French men as what-- some variation on the theme of Latin lover?-- what I mostly think of is dudes wearing cropped pants while reading a copy of Hésitation. (Which I totally saw on the train.) And yes, these guys are straight, and no, there isn't strictly anything wrong with men wearing cropped pants, it's just that it's not what leaps to mind as a romantic ideal, non?

**And as a side story to this side story, I still crack up every time I think of my Parisian friend who complained that after seven or eight years of living in Alabama, "French men just seem so delicate."