What the heck is 'dating' anyway?!?

You are a foreigner.
You come to the US for the first time.
You are single.

So far, so good.

You are excited to land on the Promise Land because frankly who doesn't want to add a nice Yankee - tall, tanned, lean, muscular, baseball-obsessed and hormone-fed - to its list of conquests?!?

Note 1: the list of adjectives works for both sexes. This posting is very theoretical and therefore has to stay as general as possible for scientific purposes.
Note 2: 'list of conquests' would totally work in French as well but I would have used more likely the formidable tableau de chasse, hunting board - as if you were collecting your lovers heads as trophy. Like a Black Widow, if you will. Kinda scary when you think about it, right?
Note 3: please don't be offended by the use of 'Yankee' - it's meant in a endearing way.

So once you have recovered from jet-lag, refreshed your pick up skills (and vocab), flossed (a MUST in the US but not really everywhere else, please don't be grossed out) and sharpened your best weapon (see the soundness of the 'hunting board' idea?!?) aka your accent, you go out.
If you are lucky it doesn't take you toooooooooooooooooo long to meet someone nice, talk, maybe kiss at the end of the night and BAM!!!!!!!

You just entered the dating game.

But you have no clue about it.
Because 'dating' as a concept doesn't exist in your country. It sure doesn't exist in France. We don't even have a word for it, much less rules. Dammit.

What are you supposed to do?

Well - if you watched enough movies and/or sitcoms all is not lost to you. You can rack your memory and think about what your favorite character did in the said situation. Or ask around. But don't expect to be pleased by the responses you'll get.

As far as I know things in French work in two different ways:
- you just want to get laid, go to a bar/club/_______ and are pretty blatant about it.
- you are looking for love, romance, sparkles, butterflies and all that and it might be a little more difficult to get the message across but - still - not impossible.
Of course since you have to start somewhere, you usually go on a first date. A rendez-vous. And of course things are not that different from what a first date in Chicago would be. You laugh, you talk, you try to seduce, you flutter your eyes and touch your hair, maybe brush a foot against a leg.

But usually - and again things might have changed since my old days - you don't have to worry about the "Are we exclusive?" bit.

I mean - what the heck is that?!?!?
Isn't it difficult enough already? finding someone interested in you, willing to take you out more than a couple times without getting upset if the big ta-da issn't happening right away - now you have to wonder if you are the only one in the game?!?!?
Is it some sort of fool-proof warranty?
Do you need to go on a test drive before choosing which car you want to ride?
Flash news: it's ok to dump someone after a couple of days, weeks or months if you don't like it. Really, it is. You don't have to keep 'one' handy, just in case. It's just..........wrong.
On so many levels.

But I guess I am either too foreign or too stooooopid (and too married) to play the game anyway. Good luck to all the others and let me know if you figure things out.