It is no secret that I (and probably ever women that I know) have a weakness for a man with an accent. It seems to make even the dullest conversations interesting just listening to them wrap their accent around the King’s English.

I don’t know if I want to divulge the number of men that I have dated from other countries, but let’s just say, Germany, France, Australia, Hungary, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, and most Spanish speaking countries have been covered.

So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when a Marcello Mastroianni type invited me to dinner after meeting him at Cielo a few weeks back (see ‘Matchmaker, Matchmaker’ blog for further reference). This one is much more complex then I initially thought. He is a combination of French, Italian, and German. He speaks five languages, owns a few houses, and runs his own PR firm. Is this my Mecca? Well, maybe and so I have called in reinforcements, e.g. my hot French girls friends to advise me.

When you date someone from a different Country there are many cultural differences that surface rather quickly at the beginning of the relationship. While you and I as American folks, might think cultural differences will be enduring and a whole lot of fun to figure out (“oh, you like to eat a cheese tray after a meal!”) , it can actually be a small nightmare and ruin very quickly what could have been a very fun (steamy) relationship due to the myriad of small misunderstandings. For example: I was once dating a French investment broker. He always paid for dinners and this was very generous, but one night I insisted on paying, and he glared at me as if I slapped his grandmother. I didn’t know it was an insult for me to pay and that he felt it was emasculating. So in order to avoid any potential misunderstanding with my newest paramour I turn to some of my girlfriends.

I have a half a dozen girlfriends from France, all of which like to throw around the sentence “This is not in my culture! I do not understand this!” whenever they are frustrated by a very American tradition, and so I ask them a little about French traditions.

As they sit on my couch, drinking wine (of course) I show them a few the texts he has written me in French (yes guys, we show our girlfriends what you write, this should not be a secret, we ALL do it). They nod their heads approvingly. “This is very high class” one of my girlfriends says.

“C’est Vrai.” (Very True) another one girlfriends says, “They way he writes this, it show he has a very good upbringing. It’s very poetic, the way he writes.”

They tell me that most French men think American women are a little to vulgar (I have heard this before from Frenchmen myself).That they talk too much about sex and are aggressive in a way that a French women would never be.

“French men chase women, and not the other way around.” My girlfriends say smuggle. These are women that have never chased a man in their life, they have never asked a man out, and would never THINK to initiate a phone call.

I take all of this into account when I met with my suitor next. I am an American woman to my core, but I don’t mind the idea of being a little old fashion, in this day in age it seems almost more progressive to take things slow.