Tutoyer, vouvoyer

Along with getting the hang of when and when not to faire la bise, I've also been trying to get my head around when to tutoyer and when to vouvoyer.

You learn in school that you use 'tu' when you know the person and 'vous' when you don't know the person.  But when do you know someone enough to transfer from using vous to using tu? And what are the exceptions (as it's French and there are inevitably many)? Here's what I've learnt from my experiences so far!

• When talking to litte children, always use tu.
• Family members, use tu.
• Whenever there is an element of a professional relationship (ie doctor, teacher or someone serving you in a shop) use vous.

Simple? Unfortunately not that simple. I was under the impression that you had to use vous on meeting people for the first time but in actual fact you can skip using the vous entirely with people you're in a similar social situation with. For example people of the same age or people who attend the same social interest group as you.

The other week I accidently tutoyed with the daughter of one of the neighbour's friends, and apologised as soon as it came out of my mouth but it was ok she said because we're of the same age group. During toddler group I was vouvoying all over, which someone explained to me wasn't necessary in that situation.

I've not had the awkward 'you can tutoyer me' moment yet when you move from addressing someone as vous to using tu but an example of when that would happen was when Stu was in the process of renting the gite from Catherine and Eric - the relationship reached a point where it went from that of landlord to that of friend (I turned up when everyone was on tu terms!).

Confused? I am...