Home All About Amy New Columns Really Old Columns Goddess Blog Amy's Book Picks Amy's Links Love Letters SUVs The Pink Rambler Contact Info

Women Behaving Beige-ly Perhaps you can tell by my heavily accented penmanship that I’m an Englishman. My recent transfer to the United States has caused me some dating woes. With English women, vocal inflections and other subtleties tell me if they’re interested. Here, every woman smiles broadly and says, “What’s happening!?” Am I suddenly exceptionally attractive, or merely in need of a translator? --Lonely Bloke You have beige food, we have beige people. Then again, from an American perspective, you Brits (especially the upper classes) tend to be rather beige yourselves. Whether an Englishman loves you or loathes you, the expression is the same -- a tiny smile with a curl of disdain (like you’re drooling out the corner of your mouth, but they’re too polite to mention it). Forget the subtleties, like whether a woman is indicating interest, or wishing you’d end up floating in the Thames. Ask her out. Ask them all out. Just tell yourself rejection is the cost of doing romantic business. Apparently, you’ve limited your contact with American women to staring at them, or you’d know what most expat Brits know: With a cute British accent, you’re unlikely to experience much rejection. Just open your stiff upper lip, flash them your bad teeth, and you’re in. next»» Copyright ©2003, Amy Alkon, from her syndicated column, "The Advice Goddess," which appears in over 100 papers across the U.S. and Canada. All rights reserved.