Letter from Poland.

 

Why I prefer Polish men...

04.06.2008

I spent last weekend in Kraków. It was a glorious couple of days with not a cloud in the sky, spent wandering the narrow streets of the atmospheric Jewish district and occasionally stopping off for a glass of wine in a café where you could watch the world go by. The only thing that was vaguely unpleasant about the trip was the four British stag parties that I encountered on the way. Drunk, loud, sweaty - they gave British men a bad name. After a weekend spent surrounded by tourist of various nationalities, I started to think about why I prefer Polish men.

Presented by Anna Piwowarska.

I noticed the difference between British and Polish men, as soon as I arrived in Poland five years ago. My first impression of the Poles wasn’t great. Instead of being wined and dined, in the way that I had got accustomed to in London, my first date in this country was an evening spent sitting on a park bench. Of course, this was very romantic – looking at stars and talking about life, but it was also cold and we were drinking beer out of a can (I don’t much like beer, certainly not out of a can). The thing that changed things completely was the first kiss. My date kissed me, the very same night on a traffic island of a busy Łódź road. This was after I had told him that I was not ready for a relationship. Despite this, he just grabbed me and kissed me! This had never happened to me before. Normally, in London , you would exchange numbers, text politely about how much fun you’d had, wait a respectable few days before either one of you called again and pretend to be busy the following weekend so that the other wouldn’t think that you had no life. Then, the first kiss would usually occur after both of you had consumed enough alcohol to give you the courage to do so. So this, spontaneous, unashamed occurrence was the first thing that made me develop a soft spot for Polish men. In fact, it led to me marrying that same man that kissed me in the middle of a road in Łódź.
So, what about the other main differences between Polish and British men? Well, British men certainly prefer to go out more on big groups – to the pub, to watch a football game, to lunch. They feel more confident when there is around ten of them and this is why riotous stag parties are so popular. Polish men usually meet each other usually in much smaller groups, often two at a time. They are also not usually as loud. British men are better dressed, on the whole, paying attention to wearing trendy shoes and expensive sunglasses, whereas Polish men are generally rather scruffy (although I find this lack of vanity quite endearing). Chat-up lines also vary. British men are better at ‘banter’ – that is witty small-talk which usually takes place in bars and nightclubs. They are good at making comments about a girl’s outfit, drink, the weather, anything really, to get the conversation going. One of them does this and then the whole group surrounds the girl, each one trying to be funnier than the other. Polish men are not quite as slick. In fact, a single friend of mine complained once that she spent a whole year in Warsaw without even once being chatted up. Polish men respect a girl’s privacy when she’s in public. I have rarely seen, Poles approach an unknown girls table at a bar. They prefer to be introduced through friends, allowing the conversation to start up more naturally. If they do gather the courage to chat a girl up, it is often very comical and sweet in its old-fashioned nature. I remember once travelling by bus and a lovely young student asked me if I might like to join him for a coffee and cake in a very nice café that he knew. I felt like I was back in the 1940’s. I went bright red as all the other passengers watched me intently and waited for me to answer. Unfortunately, I had decline as I was engaged by then, but I really wish I had experienced an old-fashioned date of the kind that my grandmother used to go on.
There is a brilliant scene in the cult 1970’s film ‘Dziewczyny do wzięcia’ (‘Girls for the taking’) where three unsophisticated, slightly chunky village girls come to Warsaw to meet boys. The first place that they go to when they arrive is an old-school, typical communist café and order a whipped cream dessert. Two young men, who see them ordering the dessert, and want to get talking to them, order another three of the same dessert and send it to the girls table. The girls force themselves to eat all the desserts so as not to appear rude to the young men. After two enormous portions of whipped cream, the youngest girl, who doesn’t even like whipped cream, is violently sick in the toilets. I love this scene, as it epitomizes everything that I like about Polish men. Even today, young men try and win women over with chocolates for name days and carnations at the airport. They stand up when you enter the room and help you with your coat when you come out of it. I know I’m old-fashioned and a hopeless romantic but I hope that these rather sweet courting rituals, which have passed onto them by their fathers and grandfathers, will not die out just yet. Whipped cream desserts will win me over any day, and I don’t even like whipped cream myself…