Brits Have More Fun

Attention, American men with questionable morals, for in my palm lies your golden ticket. For those of you who possess too much integrity to resort to roofies, but not enough to snub the more moderate arts of deception, the solution is quite simple: get yourself a British accent. Yes, I know it sounds incredibly lame, reprehensible and unpatriotic, but rest assured- the effectiveness of this strategy vastly outweighs the ridicule you’ll receive from your accent-less friends. Now I can’t speak on the success rates of foreign intonations across the board, but recent observations from my English poetry class have been nothing short of astounding. Let me explain.

This class is comprised of about 30 students, and the gender ratio is evenly proportioned. As far as I can tell, everybody falls in the category of your typical English major at a public university: overly analytical, unnecessarily angsty, and for the most part, too self-loathing to notice anyone else around them. But this kid…this one gangly, glasses-wearing, subpar-looking British kid has broken the spell, and I desperately want to uncover the mystery.

You see, the syllabus says that discussion is “required” in the class, but it is not technically calculated into the final grade, so I personally take this to mean “zone out and contribute absolutely nothing”. I assumed that most everyone else was on the same page, except for the five or six token know-it-alls who strangely do not have the attention span of a five-year-old, so I guess that’s why it came as a surprise when I realized other people were actually not laying on their desks in puddles of their own drool. You’re probably thinking I noticed this phenomenon upon hearing the British kid- to whom I will apply the stereotypical alias of “Nigel”- but you are wrong. The first time it came to my attention, I was literally startled by the sound of fourteen or fifteen females turning 180’s in their desks to face the back of the classroom. The creaking wood and the shifting feet and the ruffling papers were noisy enough to wake me from my slumber, and all because Nigel had merely opened his mouth.

Nigel quickly proved himself to be one of those attention-span-haver’s I mentioned earlier, so I knew that my daydreams of rainbows and fruit roll-ups would continue to be disrupted and decided to make the best of the situation. I began to observe Nigel and his influence over these ogling young women in every class period, digging for answers. After about a month of this, a few things became apparent.

First of all, Nigel is no T.S. Eliot. Sure, he is competent and for the most part on track with his remarks, but his intellectual donations are by no means impressive, and could be made by any schmuck who read a Dickinson poem in high school. I’ve even matched up Nigel’s talking points to that of a purebred American boy, who we’ll call Bobby, to see how the two compare. Nigel’s ramblings are average and superfluous, while Bobby’s are deeply organized and thought-provoking- not to mention Bobby is, by leaps and bounds and absolutely no nationalist bias, the most attractive male specimen in the class. It doesn’t matter, though. The ladies show no response to Bobby’s palpable charm and scholarly input, as they are too busy swooning at every syllable which courses from Nigel’s beak.

Secondly, I don’t believe in love at first sight, but love at first sound is alive and well. One of my fellow female classmates, Christy, is showing all of the symptoms- and this is no mild case of sheer infatuation. Everybody knows the countenance of a person in love; it’s blissful, it’s elated, it’s nauseating, and it’s invading Christy’s face. Poor girl, her passion for Nigel is already taking a negative toll on her in-class performance. Two days ago when she swirled around to look at him speak she knocked the books off her desk and sent papers flying across the floor- highly embarrassing for her, highly entertaining for me. Then, yesterday, I overheard her telling a friend that she got a D minus on our midterm essay. If I may say so myself, anything below a solid B in this class is the direct result of being in love with a British classmate.

Third, Nigel has a girlfriend; she is gorgeous, she is American, and she is also in the class. I don’t know why, but they kept their PDA hidden for a few weeks, and now waltz in hand-in-hand every day, flaunting their relationship for the world to see. From the consistent array of striking glances it’s clear that all of the girls hate Nigel’s girlfriend, and all of the guys hate Nigel and his false cultural pretenses. I think Nigel’s lady friend had an evil plan. They waited- waited until each and every female, at least those who remain conscious, fell head-over-heels for Nigel just by listening to him speak, until Christy’s grades began to plummet, until he became the best thing to happen to the act of interpreting literature, and then they yanked the rug out from under us. They are now the disgustingly perfect, unattainable power couple of English poetry. But that’s neither here nor there.

To verify my findings I interviewed my 20-year-old neighbor, Abby, simply asking her how men with accents differ from those without them, and this is what she told me:

“I made out with an ugly American boy once, and I was grossed out after. On the other hand, I made out with an ugly British boy once, and I was completely fine with it.”

There you have it.

The point is, for the fellas at least, a valuable lesson can be learned from Nigel. It doesn’t matter if you’re pale, frail and physically unattractive.  It doesn’t matter if, in addition to being unattractive, you have average-at-best intellectual capabilities and minimal game. It doesn’t matter if you use Axe body wash. You don’t need those things that other men have. All you need is to walk softly and carry a British accent, and believe me, the panties will drop.