Why we gripe: a manifesto

Some of my friends back home have been reading my Treading Perrier column on Hobo In Paris and, picking up on a certain degree of sarcasm, email me with varying permutations on the following question: “Why are you complaining so much? You’re in Paris and have it pretty nice, so why nitpick?”

They’re right that I’ve been complaining: in the past three months, I’ve griped about everything from strikes to plumbing to taxes to air travel, poked fun at Parisian bums, the French language, and my coworkers’ names, facial expressions and personal hygiene, made light of smokers dying of non-cancerous causes and even made fun of my own tendency to make an idiot of myself again and again and again and the magic needed to keep that to a minimum. Only occasionally do I leave the sarcasm out and just explain something objectively.

I write this week’s piece not so much as an answer to my friends back home, but as a call to arms to all of my fellow expats in Paris. After all, I’m not the only griper among us. Back home, people stand around the water cooler talking politics, football and weather. Here, we expats stand around complaining about the Préfecture, apartment headaches and exchange rates . . . and for good reasons. So my manifesto to you is simple: keep griping.

First, let’s straighten out a couple of the things that are not reasons why we expats gripe:

- We’re not griping because we’re unhappy. On the contrary, griping is what makes us happy.

- We’re not griping because we want to change things for the better. That’s not our job. We’re outsiders merely observing another culture. It’s not our place to tinker.

So, you might ask, then why do we gripe?

The main reason that we gripe is simply to observe the world around us. Think about it: we all left home and moved here to see and experience new things and anything new is bound to be difficult. We created all of these inconveniences, conflicts and misunderstandings by moving here in the first place. When you’re not sure why you’re complaining so much, remind yourself that all of these things—from the Préfecture to the phone company to the strikes to the broken vélibs—are all your fault. If you decided to stretch your horizons by moving abroad, then by your very nature, you’re a conflict-driven individual, bringing these problems on yourself. So embrace your inner griper and gripe away.

The second reason why we gripe—a distant second—is to help others who come after us. Note that, as I said before, we are not trying to fix the problems themselves, but just give others a little forewarning before they step in the same things we did.

I say that this is a distant second because I actually have mixed feelings about it. I find myself advising new arrivals all the time, trying to give them that perfect nugget of information that will keep them out of all of the trouble that I have gotten myself into. Then I realize that in so doing, I am not only sparing them of the problems, but am also averting all of those learning experiences that make this all so challenging, but ultimately fulfilling, rewarding, memorable and enjoyable.

By giving them the benefit of learning from my experiences, I am depriving them of the process of learning those lessons themselves, which is what we really get out of this anyway. In many instances, I’m doing them a disservice, not a favor.

Once the lesson is used once, it has usually lost all of its value. Opening a French bank account or setting up your electricity with EDF, for example, are things most people will only have to do once in their lifetimes. But suffering through those challenges yourself instead of applying the received wisdom of expats who arrived before you teaches you far more. I know people who have developed negotiating skills down at the Préfecture that they have gone on to find good use for in everything from talking their way out of a speeding ticket to settling securities litigation. It may be annoying, but conflict has a value.

Every time I hear of someone hiring a relocation specialist or a law firm to walk them through this minefield one baby step at a time, I cringe at all of the money they are spending to avoid a priceless learning experience. It’s like paying someone to climb Mount Everest; they can tell you about it afterwards, but you haven’t learned anything yourself. You haven’t grown, you haven’t struggled and you certainly haven’t achieved a thing on your own.

So gripe away, but unless it’s literally life-saving advice, don’t let the newbies hear you. Keep your griping right here in the family, among expats who can share your pain and enjoy it, just like you do.