The Girls From Ipanema Are Not Impressed
So slow. American men are so slow.
Late last year, nine months after she left Brazil, Camila Franca met a dark-haired, blue-eyed American hockey player at a party. They sat on the couch and talked for hours about nightclubs, her family, her life back home.
He did not touch her. He certainly did not kiss her. Something must be wrong, she thought.
Excusing herself, Ms. Franca, a 20-year-old with long brown hair and a hair-trigger laugh, sought advice from a more savvy Brazilian friend. The friend's explanation? Nothing was wrong; he was just being an American.
Forget getting a job, learning English, finding an apartment. The true challenge for the young, single and foreign-born who arrive in New York is cracking the code of the dating scene.
For Brazilian women, who come from a place where public displays of affection are a way of life and men rarely lack for amorous gusto, the task is particularly confounding. Ask Brazilian women what they think about American men, and most respond precisely the same way: with gales of laughter. Then they tell disturbingly similar tales of men who fear making advances lest they be accused of date rape and who coldly calculate how many days they need to wait between meeting a woman and asking her to dinner.
As for Ms. Franca's encounter with the handsome hockey player, her friend intervened, explaining to him that when two Brazilians hit it off at a party, they usually make out.
"As he was leaving he gave me a kiss," said Ms. Franca.
And? "There was no chemistry."
Ms. Franca spun her tales of woe sprawled on the futon in her sparsely furnished one-bedroom apartment in Astoria, Queens, the center of Brazilian life in the city. She shares the place with three roommates, two of whom, Patricia Santos, 26, and Rebeca Vianna, 22, waitresses like herself, joined in a lively conversation about the differences between American and Brazilian men.
The problems with American men, they agreed, start with their inability to approach women in bars.
"A Brazilian, he'll be looking at you for a while," said Ms. Franca. "If the woman responds, he'll come over to you. If not, he'll move on to another woman. Americans are so slow."
"Could it be that American men are afraid she'll say no?" Ms. Santos suggested.
"It comes from their lifestyle," Ms. Vianna suggested. "Everybody is focused on money. They go to a bar to relax, to de-stress. Brazilians are much more devoted to having fun."
The "rules" dictating that a man should wait several days before calling a woman for the first time could spell trouble to a Brazilian woman. "In Brazil, the guy will generally call the next day or the day after," Ms. Franca said. "If not, I consider it a closed case."
But if these roommates are any guide, American men are less reserved once they learn that a woman is from Brazil. Some politely ask about Brazilian culture; others just start talking about Carnaval and string bikinis. In nearly every case, their faces light up immediately. And that offends the women.
"They think it will be easy to sleep with you," said Ms. Franca.
"They think we wear our sexuality on our sleeve," said Ms. Vianna. "They always ask, 'Oh, do you have Brazilian friends?' "
In a story that her roommates know by heart, Ms. Santos tells of a man she met over the winter at Suede, a club on West 23rd Street. Miracle of miracles, he actually kissed her after they had chatted and danced for a few hours. But as they waited outside for his friend to swing by in a car and take her home, the man made no attempt to embrace her or keep her warm by wrapping her in his arms; his hands stayed firmly in his pockets.
"I was so mad that I made him sit in the front seat and I got in back," she said.
Not surprisingly, the two did not see each other again.
The three young women were quick to note that not all American men are so wary of displaying physical affection. Those who hail from a Latino, Italian or African-American background, the women have discovered, are often more expressive. In addition, the women pointed out, American men have other good qualities - their faithfulness, for example. Brazilian women often say that Brazilian men are safados - shameless - and love to chase the fairer sex. Americans actually mean what they say (at least more often than Brazilians do). And they are sweet.
So whom would they rather date?
"Brazilians," said Ms. Franca.
"Brazilians," said Ms. Vianna.
"Brazilians," said Ms. Santos.

(Seth Kugel, The New York Times)

Entrou aqui porque o autor é meu professor e porque está muito engraçada.