I should probably feel badly about how I behaved at Decathlon last weekend. We went to Decathlon to browse rain gear for biking, just like everyone else in Paris. And because it was crowded at France’s favorite sporting good store, the crowd’s sense of how to behave as humans in society went out the window.

People squeezed past me without even a mutter of a “pardon.” Children ran around at speeds unfit for a place of commerce. Parents screamed at them with levels of irritation they usually save for the privacy of their own homes. While there, we saw our old upstairs neighbors, the ones who liked to drag wooden chairs across their apartment for sport. They pretended not to see us, so we did the same from two yards away. See you never, voisins.

After a fourth group of shoppers walked at, then through me, I began to go full American Karen in France. “Tu peux dire ‘pardon’” I’d say, reminding them they are fully capable of at least saying excuse me as they assaulted my personal space. Then I went on a tirade at my husband about how when crowds reach a certain saturation point, his countrymen forget the “fraternité” part of France’s motto and instead go completely feral. He didn’t disagree but neither he nor the Decathlon checkout line were in the mood to hear my speech about it.

Afterwards, I did a little self assessment I’ve been trying to do to help me be less frustrated in France. I ask myself if the problem was me. Was I unfamiliar with an aspect of the culture, or was I totally justified in being pissed off? Sometimes all the situation requires is an adjustment of perspective, as with slow Airbnb check-ins, or the constant need to compromise to achieve anything here. But I concluded that line and crowd etiquette are just common sense, kindness even, and I was not going to get over how it seems everyone devolves to their rudest selves in crowd situations in France, mostly Paris. So I stayed pissed off.

There are many things I’ve acclimated to while living in France. I barely even bristle at a slow checkout line anymore. I can make it through a four hour dinner without falling asleep (usually). I eat cheese after, not before a meal. I’m used to taking my clothes off and putting them back on in front of the doctor. I’ve even begun to lean into the bise.

That said, there are some (admittedly trivial) things I refuse to be chill about.

No Smiling At Strangers

When I first moved here I felt like every man was flirting with me. I soon realized it was because they thought I was flirting with them. I was giving them the American “Hi human, we’re both humans in the same general space, here’s a half smile of acknowledgement” smile. Apparently that’s way too friendly and it either suggests you’re DTF or batshit crazy. I stopped for a while to fit in, then realized it’s very unnatural to constantly withhold smiling. I went back to smiling whenever I felt like it, even if it makes strangers recoil in confusion. Sometimes I’ll even make small talk with strangers if I am in the mood to really ruin their day.

People Walking Up My Ass

Everyone is always walking at, then into my ass and I’m never going to be okay with it. I never experienced this before moving to France, maybe because if I was walking in LA there was no one else around. But I hate when people catch up to you on the sidewalk and don’t just go around or say “excuse me.” They just tailgate you until your paths eventually diverge. Well I won’t stand for it. No, after enough of this I began to performatively stop in the middle of the road and let them pass, always saying “hey if you want to live INSIDE my ass, I’m going to have to charge you rent.” No one ever replies.

Men Constantly Trying To Kill Me

Men in white vans almost run me over several times a week. I understand that they’re working guys trying to get either to or from a job, but they still need to yield when I’m already well into a crosswalk. I’ve been biking a lot since we took up residence in the deep 12th arrondissement, so now I’m dealing with men on bikes and cars who turn in front of me when I have the green, forcing me to give my right of way to them or crash into them.

What shocks me more than the constant near-accidents is that no other walkers or riders bat an eye about this. No one is ever screaming or gesticulating at the offenders, they just swerve and carry on. I refuse to be chill when a car almost hits me, it’s too dangerous and even worse, rude. I scream the few French profanities I know at the drivers, sometimes some of the Spanish profanities I remember sneak in there too, then I flip them off which immediately lets them know I’m American. I’ve been known to chase them down then suggest “learn to drive, monsieur” if their car window happens to be open. I do this for the catharsis, but also to educate these vehicular manslaughter attempters: maybe the next time they’re about to accelerate toward a woman, they’ll remember the crazy American lady screaming mean things about their mom in French and Spanish, and give the breaks a little courtesy tap.

Metro/Elevator Crowders

The only math I was ever good at was geometry, and I think it’s because I have good spatial awareness. Sorry to flex so hard but it’s just true. And maybe that’s why I have such a superior comprehension of volumes, and that the people exiting a space—say the Paris Metro—have to get out before there’s room for new people to go in. I naively assumed this was common knowledge, but maybe it’s not as intuitive for everyone as it is for me, a shapes and spaces genius.

But yeah, I’ll never get over people trying to get onto the metro as people are exiting. These narcissists are both beaver and dam, gumming up the metro riding ops so hard with their dumb, traffic-flow blocking dumb dumb bodies. And of course I tell them so, sometimes gently with a mellow “Madame, I have to exit before you can enter” for the older Parisian ladies, notorious for cutting lines. Sometimes I’m a little more brash with a “get out of the way ass hat” to a young man who assumed I’d get out of his way as he mounted the car.

Poop Everywhere

Self explanatory. It also doesn’t have to be this way. I saw nary a street shit during the Olympics, meaning Parisians and their dogs were capable of holding it in or cleaning it up. One month post-Olympics I’m seeing more literal shit piles than ever before and I refuse to accept that this is just how life is.

Pee Everywhere

I have seen, heard, and smelled so many men peeing in the streets in Paris, and it still outrages me every time the tell-tale hiss of piss is within earshot. Sometimes they at least find a sequestered tree or nook. Other times they’ll settle for a very public, not-so-hidden tree to water. I hate this because it’s gross, but also because I can’t do it.

No One Drinks Water

There’s an ongoing joke amongst Americans in France that isn’t actually a joke because it’s true, and it has to do with the fact that our French friends don’t drink any water. The glasses we’re given at meals are but thimbles to the American thirst, and it feels silly to refill them eight times each sitting or to be constantly requesting another carafe, then another. Elderly French folks famously have never drank water a day in their lives, only allowing wine and coffee to pass their lips. The joke is also on us Americans though, because you can spot us coming a mile away with our Nalgenes and Hydroflasks and un-chapped lips.

I won’t get into the whole ice thing because to be totally honest, I think I’m actually over it. I’m over ice. What a sad realization.

Bad Jeans

Men in thin, tight, stretchy jeans are plaguing France, not just Paris, and my eyeballs are tired of having to witness them. I don’t know how this niche denim trend that had a worldwide moment over a decade ago has become the standard for jeans for men across ages and income brackets here in France. I say this even as a person who hasn’t had a taught stomach a day in my life and would enjoy a bit of stretch: denim is 100% cotton or nothing at all. This should especially be true for men who have no hips or curves or monthly bloating that requires elastane in the first place. Denim fabric has its origins in France—it’s de Nimes—so I think we can all embrace its legacy and kick the crappy, stretchy, whiskered jean habit. And if you think I’m being mean and nitpicky with this one, I’ll invite you to wear yoga pants out of the house to discover that the French themselves are the original pants shamers, it’s just that their ire is focused on the wrong fabric.

Complacence

The “c’est pas possible” outlook was at first confusing, then kind of funny, now just normal, but I can’t abide. Every time someone at the post office or a restaurant or a store say something isn’t possible, it always ends up being quite possible after applying a tiny dose of effort. But I think this outlook has a creeping effect on Parisians, eventually making them extremely complacent and accepting of shit situations—shituations. My barely researched hypothesis is that after enough “pas possibles,” one’s idea of what is possible gets muddled, and they just accept the shituations more and more.

Our current apartment came with a few odd shituations that the owners clearly decided to live with. Creaking furniture, a toilet paper holder that fell down every time you looked at it, hard to reach dust. They saw these problems and said “well, I guess this is my life now.” Then I showed up and fixed it all because I won’t let myself become complacent. Which might have something to do with why I won’t put up with all of the above.

“If You Don’t Like It, Then Why Don’t You Leave”

If you talk about such stuff on social media you get hit with this question a lot, which is a thinly veiled way of saying “go back to where you’re from.” But I would venture that none of the above critiques are against cherished components of the French culture, just trifling bad habits that we could all live without. I’m not criticizing the very things that make the French French, their intrinsic characteristics and traditions. I’ll adapt to important cultural things like the bise, saying goodbye twelve times, and not looking at someone else’s plate at a restaurant. I just want people to like, be more polite and not piss in the street anymore.

And as all Americans living abroad know: when we have a little laugh about the slow service or small water glasses of France, it’s with full awareness that our own GMO-covered, gun-toting, loud-talking country is so much worse. It’s almost as though we’re allowed to joke about these things because we’re doomed forever to be punching up.