Among a host of first world problems is the mysterious Paris Syndrome – that horrible feeling you get when you realize the beautiful City of Lights isn’t all that you imagined it to be. And strangely, the worst to be affected by this bizarre condistion are the otherwise calm and collected Japanese.

As ridiculous as it sounds, Paris Syndrome is very real. Because of the way the city is represented in the media, especially the Japanese media, a lot of people labor under the misconception that Paris is a quaint, friendly little place with affluence reeking in its every corner. The women are imagined to be dainty and beautiful, the city is expected to smell like Chanel No. 5, parks filled with pigeons and waiters bursting into song at the drop of a hat. In fact, many Japanese really believe that Parisians are all thin, gorgeous and unbelievably rich. Inevitably, their bubble is burst on their very first day in the city.

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French dating site Adopte Un Mec (Adopt a Guy) has recently opened a pop-up boutique in the heart of the Paris fashion district, where women can actually-window-shop for a date. Real men are displayed in glass containers that look like Ken doll boxes and have names like “Mr. Muscle” and “The Rocker.”

Can you imagine going shopping for fashionable clothes and instead coming home with a hot date? It can happen if you happen to pass by the Adopt-a-Guy shop on  Rue de La Bonheur (Street of Happiness), in Paris. This unique pop-up boutique has eligible bachelors displayed in the windows for women “clients” to admire. They are actually there only for promotional purposes, and are not really available for purchase, but the website that came up with this quirky idea really was built on the idea of putting women in the driver’s seat. Both men and women can register, but only the ladies are allowed to send messages. It was created this way so female users could avoid the “the constant bombardment of unwanted advances from men” and “hold the power of communication so they can focus on the men they desire.” Guys can only post their photos online and wait to be contacted. The site actually wants women to feel like they’re shopping for men, and the home page actually says ““There are 0 men in your cart.” Business is booming and Adopte Un Mec has over 300 million page views per month.

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Here’s another example of a bizarre business promotional strategy. This time it’s by IKEA and they actually took over a Paris subway station.

In a bid to prove that with IKEA furnishing you can make any living space comfortable, the company erected an apartment right in the middle of the Auber station in Paris. It was only 581 sq ft. in size and five people lived in it for five days (Jan 9^th to 14^th). The company tried a similar event around two years back when they decked subway platforms with IKEA furnishings, but this took things a step forward. Or maybe a giant leap. The apartment mainly consisted of IKEA storage products, clearly aiming at space management. Plain to view through huge clear-glass windows for the hundreds of thousands of people who use the subway, their publicity stunt sure didn’t miss any eyeballs. Time-lapse videos have been made of the construction of the apartment. Videos documenting the experiences of the five people living there have also been put up by the company.

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