Today on the pod: we interrogate the cultural pinnacle of Passport to Paris in a playful ~petite ep~. Questions we ask ourselves include but are not limited to: which parts of the movie actually hold up 26 years later? Which aspects are now painfully dated?? And which were never true? Why does everyone speak a mystery language? How do they make headscarves look like high art? Should we be trying quail eggs? And maybe the singular most crucial question—are more cowboy hats the answer to Parisian stranger energy? Spoiler alert: no probably not but stick around anyways.

Today we're joined by actor, writer, filmmaker, and new-ish Paris resident—Clark Moore—to tackle our most oft-heard accusation: that Americans in Paris are inherently annoying. From casting ourselves as the city’s main character, to treating Paris like a personal art incubator, and the well trodden theater-kid-to-Paris-pipeline, we explore the behaviours that grind the gears of outsiders & locals alike.

Are we just as insufferable as the incessant rumours say, or, well .... are y'all just jealous?? Come at us baby. Years of Parisian "c'est pas possibles" have thickened our skin.

Referenced:

• Bloomberg's "Revisiting Paris Syndrome in the Smartphone Era": https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-10-24/revisiting-paris-syndrome-in-the-smartphone-travel-era
• Gateway guy theory: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOb3f2BkRaa/

Where to find Clark!

• Clark's Substack, Wistover: https://clarkmoore.substack.com/
• Read his essay in the first issue of the new literary magazine, Souvenir: https://www.souvenir-paris.com/
• @mrclarkmoore on IG

Being in your 30s is WEIRD. Some would even say it’s peak time for life’s biggest ~culture clashes~. Your friend group suddenly starts to splinter—one falls in love and moves to farmhouse upstate, another has a baby and starts coping with the dreaded "witching hour", and the other is still out until 2 a.m. lighting shots on fire on a Wednesday ("leave me alone" -Gabby). In this episode, your fav duo is talking diverging timelines, mismatched milestones, and whether friendship can survive when everyone seems to be living a significantly different reality. Also: "Snack & Spiral" is back, and unsurprisingly a seasonal flavor of Bret's chips plays a starring role.

Vogue: Why Is It So Hard to Maintain Friendships From Your 20s in Your 30s?

The Cut: Our friendship survived bad dates, illness, marriage, fights. Why can’t it survive your baby?

Y'all we are SO excited to be back with you again after a way way too long hiatus. But here we are for Season 2 of Clashists!! One of us grew a human being inside their body and the other continued to strike out on Hinge. We'll let you guess which was which. We recap our fav things we ate, bought, and obsessed over this past summer (and, well, early fall) and catch-up on some ~cultural~ happenings—namely how the heck they just dropped (??!) that jewel-laden crown, and why you should just shut up already about Belly's Sacre Coeur view. Love you, missed you.

Does your vibe actually shift when you swap languages? Is French really the sexiest language? Is the fear of looking like an idiot thwarting our impending fluency? This week, Gabby and Dani are joined by linguist and language wizard Beatriz Lopez to unpack the wild (and painfully exhausting) subject of bi- (and tri) lingual brains. We get into whether speaking French actually rewires your personality (spoiler: sort of), why flirting feels smoother en français, and whether French actually deserves its rep as a hard-to-learn language—or if we're just A+ whiners. Come for the sociology, stay for the existential crisis.

Today on the pod: culture shock meets bedroom talk—we’re diving deep with Jessamy Holland, a psychosexual and relationship therapist based in Paris. She helps Dani & Gabby break down everything from the thrill and heartbreak of international dating, to navigating intimacy across cultural norms, to the quirks of French‑vs‑American expectations around sex, communication, and romance. Can she solve the dilemma of why Gabby despises dating French men? Or why French partners struggle with the word "sorry"? Only time (or, you know, this episode) will tell. Plus - tacos, Percy Pig gummies, and...brie + sugar??

No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model: https://www.amazon.com/No-Bad-Parts-Restoring-Wholeness/dp/1683646681

Saving Sex and the City 3 Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5yHlD9lmwJavFz83AjI5yr

Tiktok of the girl @ Charli XCX reading her breakup text: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdyJp58r/

Today is a very special day, because today we have one of our favorite people on the pod - Sutanya Dacres!! Sutanya has created a far-reaching community of readers, listeners and diners under her Dinner for One umbrella, in which she encourages single women to reclaim their tables and their stories. While Dani has been barred from the exclusive single supper club, Gabby has had the recent privilege of getting dumped — allowing her special access. Sutanya walks us all the way from her Jamaican roots, to her first mayonnaise experience (spoiler alert: it wasn't her "her type of taste"), to her stint in the suburbs, and eventually her whirlwind email-based romance — and heartbreak — at the hands of a French man that upended her life and plopped her down in the "studio" with us today. We touch on the difference between integration and immersion, the problems with online "dating coaches", how to cope post breakup and so so so much more (namely: cake).

Find Sutanya's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Dinner-One-Cooking-Paris-Saved/dp/0778333035 (or at Shakespeare & Co!)

Find Sutanya online here: @dinnerfor.one

Additional references:

• Lauren Collins' book: When in French: Love in a Second Language
• Lauren Collins' New Yorker article on El Mordjene: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/how-a-hazelnut-spread-became-a-sticking-point-in-franco-algerian-relations
• Kate Kassin's Bon Appetit article on ice cream: https://www.bonappetit.com/story/best-ice-cream-desserts-restaurants-2025?srsltid=AfmBOootHkI-JdcniSkHaQG8wqaQVFu59ox8GXq60pb600TGCV2oZty5
• Ice cream references: JJ Hings, @kevglace
• Nikita Wallia's "thinking out loud" Substack: The Rise of the TikTok Oracle

We had to hop on the ~*~viral~*~ propaganda-we're-not-falling-for trend. Whether it's French men's falsely "romantic" reputation, French pharmacy fails, croissant chaos or attacks on snacks - Dani & Gabby are coming in hot today with the Paris propaganda they absolutely refuse to get behind.

🎶 LET'S GO BACK, BACK TO THE BEGINNING 🎶 (IYKYK) Happy to report that we've acquired a lot of new friends recently so we're re-running our DEBUT EP! This is the ep in which we discover how awkward it is to talk TO each other while talking FOR someone else, and navigate just how much eye contact a social arrangement like that entails. Always nice to go back to your roots and remind yourself where you came from. Keeps us humble!!! Love y'all and see you next wk with a spankin' new ep.

It's our first guest & we COULDN'T be more excited!!!!! Clashes abound in this one 🚘! Matt tells us all about his early life in the Philippines and what it was like to come to the US as a kid — from the unique joys of childhood Costco sample scouring to the iconic gondolas in Vegas' Grand Canal Shoppes. We dig into baby's first culture shocks, the upsides/downsides/necessity of rule-following as an immigrant, the joys of NYC as an "outsider", and Matt's relationship with France today. BONUS: he schools us on the legacy (and mystery) of ~ Chartreuse ~.

• Matt's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattortile/?hl=en

• Matt's book: The Groom Will Keep His Name: And Other Vows I've Made About Race, Resistance, and Romance: https://a.co/d/5oQFSX8

• The great CN Traveler piece he references: https://www.cntraveler.com/story/french-asian-paris-ro-kwon