I’ve lived in paris for 5/6 years, I was fluent when I arrived (years of international school) and my mom had already been living here for several years. Still, it was a big culture shock and adjustment and absolutely levelled up my French to the point where now French people usually assume I am from here.
The problem is even with all that, I just don’t feel at home. Some cultural differences feel insurmountable, the blasé and critical attitude is difficult for me, I’ve always been very high energy and jokey and have a hard time finding people in everyday life who match that energy. Whenever I go back to the states I feel so fulfilled and like myself and it really makes me question why I’m here. I have a very cool job in the non-profit sector, so not super well-paid, and a very stable loving relationship, my apartment, my mom… there’s still something where I feel like I’ll never fully be accepted here. I feel like my American-ness immediately puts me down in peoples’ eyes, I feel like I will never write perfectly or totally grasp codes and it will always take me a slight extra effort to understand things that are easy for people here. I don’t get cultural references and I don’t know the clichés of every tiny town and region.
I’m from New York so I liked living here because I felt that Paris was such a better cost of living/quality of life ratio, and I love the work-life balance and accessibility of culture. However, what use are my 5 weeks of vacation if I spend half of them going back home? And probably, I always will, because my missing home will never go away, my friends and family there will keep getting married or getting sick or just being there ?
And France’s descent into xenophobic fascism is not helping. I know all the issues in the US, but it’s different, I am from there and always will be, whereas I am actively choosing to live in France and contribute to its economy.
Just feeling like the jig is up and I did what I had to do, and now I can leave. This is just venting, don’t know if anyone here can relate, if this is a bump in the road or a red alert.
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Tapped out at 36:21. It was all trash but that fight was comically bad.
ur not an expat if u didnt renounce us citizenship
Came there from uk, for few days I didn’t like the attitude of the French, I dont know if it’s just me but I found them most of them are a snob
Look. Paris is not for everybody. I like it there but I have the advantages of being male and fitting French prejudices about a certain kind of upper middle class yankee,!which makes life easy for me. Having been around the French my whole life, I think it’s ten or twenty times harder to be an American woman in France than an American man. I am pretty sure the US is a lot closer to fascism than France is. But I am also certain that it’s way easier to be an American woman in the US than an American woman in France. For what it’s worth I have two grown French daughters. One has embraced her Frenchness and has moved there. The other far prefers New York because of French attitudes towards women. Everybody gets to choose.
gonna shut this down already bc i stupidly left in one sentence of a political opinion that was too inviting to all the right wing assholes on here, it is truly my bad. although your hatefulness to the very idea that france could be xenophobic and immediately calling me gaucho trash and talking about the 93 … proves my point :)
I did the opposite thing, spent a couple decades in France and moved to the US 10 years ago.
Had I read your post 10 years ago I would not have understood and just moved on. However, it took me moving back stateside to realize how obnoxious the French can be - including well… myself (I am both).
They/we just don’t realize, until they spent several years outside - and only if they have the opportunity not to mingle only with French (which they/we generally seize) - so I can absolutely relate to what you are saying.
I’ve thought about this a lot, especially as to the “why”. Happy to get into more details offline but my two cents conclusion is that French have a massive superiority complex that leads to what you are experiencing. I could ramble for hours about this so I’ll just stop right there :)
I moved to the east coast for very different reasons (I did lot like working in France) and the time I spent in Paris as a kid makes me immune to most of the issues you’re facing - but I can exactly understand what you are taking about.
The decision is yours to make, but it’s a clear trade off. Everything is far from being perfect here at all. A pros and cons list generally is a great place to start - but it generally is an opportunity that represents a healthy trigger for a move. Moving back without the said opportunity would just be a retreat.
Hey. We really considered Paris and ended up in Berlin instead. Berlin is far more like NYC. An enormous amount of the population is from somewhere else. 171 spoken languages. Tons of acceptance. Much more green space. Good benefits like you’ve been experiencing. Much more accepting culture. I have friends who move here from Paris (native) who swear up and down they’d never move back. Perhaps it’s an option if you don’t want to abandon the EU but need better acceptance and comfort.
If feeling like a native is the necessary condition to stay somewhere, America as it is today would not exist.
I totally empathize with you. Trust your gut. I’m British Canadian living in Montreal. I’ve lived here for 8 yrs, and though I appreciate the Europeanism and “refinement” of living here in the context of North America, I have never felt at home here for similar reasons. I’m semi fluent in French but, like you, don’t get a lot of the jokes or emphemisms. Also spend almost every week of my vacation back in London.
Staying here due to cost-of-living while grittingly accepting the xenophobic fascism, and ‘walking on eggshells’ for being English as if it’s a stamp of second class citizenry. If I had the money, I’d be planning my move already, but unfortunately, it’s convenience and lack of funds keeping me here.
If I had the money to move, I’d move back in a heartbeat. However, if you do choose NYC, there seems to be an insane housing crisis atm though I’m sure you already know! Good luck to you
The advantage for us who change countries because we want and can is that we can always go back if and when it doesn’t workout any more and there is no shame on that.
Others don’t need to agree with your reasons, they aren’t living your life.
Don’t do it lol I felt the same and now I’m back and hating it (lived in France for 9 years). The unfortunate reality of living abroad for an extended period of time is that you’ll never again feel like you really belong anywhere. Way better to feel like you don’t belong in a city/country that actually cares about people.
Honestly, it sounds like Paris/France is sucking out more energy than needed. Nothing is worth peace of mind. If the place is somehow stopping you from being you, it is sensible to go back quickly. After all, for how long can you tolerate this? 5 years, 10 years, 30 years,…?
Come home and get your hamburgers big boy
France is an exclusionary society. I realized that when I saw their president meeting a foreign delegation and literally everyone on the French side of the table was a French native male. Zero attempt at even gender diversity let alone diversity of background. Surprisingly, these same shots attempt to condescend on America by claiming to have more advanced racial beliefs.