Je ne comprends pas.

My strategy of pretending to only speak French to people who approach me on the street (who I want to avoid) has now failed for the second time, leading to two conversations that were just as uncomfortable and far more difficult than they would have been in English. The first time -- in Berlin -- I spoke with a gaunt, unshaven man for ten minutes or so about some march protesting Chinese human rights policy while the poor girl selling the tour tickets worked through a transaction with a foreign couple who didn't speak much English at all. After a while, I sheepishly admitted that I am American (and that I speak English). He said I didn't have an American accent while speaking French. +1!

Today I ran into someone at the ATM machines nearby. There are 5 or 6 of them, plus 3 or 4 larger terminals that you can use to do arbitrary banking stuff. The ATMs differ slightly in which currencies and denominations they dispense, and the guy was using the one I really wanted (which can dispense 20CHF notes, instead of only 50/100/200). I think he was just really drunk, but it's hard to tell. Either way, we had a brief, but similarly uncomfortable discussion, in French, about Obama. Of course we did.

Perhaps I'll give up this strategy and treat people with the respect they deserve. Then again, this has worked quite well, despite two strikes.

In the end, it's a pretty fundamental social question, and I don't have a good answer. Or any answer. But yinz are smarter and more worldly than I.

Discuss.