So I have this regular at work.

He’s tall, broad-shouldered (we’re talking Hugh Jackman OH MY GOD I WANT TO WORSHIP EVERY – AND I DO MEAN EVERY – INCH OF YOU build here), outrageously handsome, and one of the sweetest guys I have ever met. Every time he comes into the store he addresses me by name, although I haven’t officially given it to him — he’s picked it up from other people. Every time he places his order (large coffee and a slice of blueberry pie, to start) he looks me directly in the eye and he lingers. When I give him his order he smiles, genuinely and wide, and still he is looking at me.  He shakes my hand and it’s a comfortable grip, not forceful and full of some need to prove that he has a dick and it may be bigger than mine.

(Though I wouldn’t mind him proving that.)

Whenever he looks at me and smiles I look at him and smile right back, and whenever I’m on my way to go clean a bathroom made messy by spoiled, baby-booming Rittenhouse residents who’ve never had to wipe their own asses before (and thus can’t be blamed when they miss the toilet by several feet), the chore is made more bearable by the fact that when I walk by his table, he always looks up and acknowledges me with a grin. Not to mention, he tips generously.

So by now I know that you, my faithful reader[s], are wondering what the hell the catch is. After all, when it comes to Brando and men, there’s always a catch.

Well, I’m not going to disappoint.

The problem with this latest guy — this handsome, more charming than should be legal Adonis among men — is that he’s straight.

Perfectly 100% straight.

I know what you’re thinking now, or at least I know what I was thinking when I learned that he was more than definitely straight: “Then what’s with all the flirting? The eye contact? Straight men don’t do that.”

Well, you’d only be partly right. American straight men don’t do that. This man, however, is Irish.

Perfectly 100% Irish.

(And let me just say, slap an authentic Irish accent on top of all those other attractive qualities I mentioned earlier, and you have a recipe for moist panty a la mode. Makes work a little awkward, to say the least.)

And suddenly it makes sense. At least it should. European men, when seen in an American light, are almost comically gay-acting. Hell, the one slightly-redeeming number in the nausiating musical “Legally Blonde” pokes fun at this very fact:

Now I’m no cultural anthropologist, but it has been my experience that European men, while stuck up in their own ways, just weren’t born with the same sexual stick up their asses that was afforded to us American men – courtesy of living in a country with a relatively young cultural history steeped in puritanical prudence and shame.

Straight American men, when interacting with other males, do so in a way that ‘s obviously separate from how they would interact with females. They look you in the eye, but they’ll never let their gaze linger. They’ll smile at you, but there’s always the tiniest bit of restraint. No less genuine than the smile they’d give to a woman, but not quite as vulnerable. Maintaining a definitive air of masculinity is a staple here. When an straight American man doesn’t do these things, they become red flags. Any gay man will tell you, when it comes to “feeling-out” a potential homosexual, more so than any obscene or obviously gay gesture, it’s the eyes that give it away. If your eyes linger for even a split second longer than average, if your smile is just a bit too wide, you become suspect.

(And rarely are we wrong.)

This sexual barometer just doesn’t work with straight European men. They’re not as uptight (only their pants are). A European man will look you right in the eye, smile broadly, and be as emotionally genuine with you as they would any skirt walking by, and be vagina-licking straight.

And I just don’t like it.

So for now I think I’ll pass on European men. I like good ol’ American sexual/moral/social hang-ups. Makes us a bit easier to read.