There’s an inexplicable and simultaneously undeniable sentiment among us women: a man with an accent has a leg up over a man with no accent. Let’s say you spot a guy across the bar and clock him as a 7/10. But, when you talk to him, he has an Australian accent… all of a sudden, he’s a gorgeous 9/10. Accents, in this sense, act as “beer goggles” for women. We might even think a guy is attractive solely because of his accent, but why?
Could it be the appeal of the mystery? We don’t know exactly how dating and love go in other countries, so there’s an opportunity for it to be this new, amazon experience. American women might subconsciously assume that men from other cultures will be better than American men because there is so much “unknown”; there is, unfortunately, far too much we do know about dating American men.
I, personally, have come to assume that any man I meet in the states will be conservative. I’m not quite sure why, considering how liberal and politically active the UCSB community is, but I think it’s a defense mechanism. When I travel to other countries, I make the opposite assumption and default to thinking that the men are progressive. This is a combination of wishful thinking, and some American political trauma that comes with being a woman.
I will always swear up and down by the fact that a crush is just a lack of information. In Santa Barbara, this just means you only see and know what that man wants you to see and know about him. So, a man from an entirely different culture from your own, means that this lack of information is multiplied by a thousand.
He could have a beautifully provocative Italian accent, but at the end of the day, he’s still just a man. There’s an intrigue about how foreign men are raised in their culture: how they are expected to treat women, if they would ever dare to ask to split the bill, how they approach romance, etc. All of these unanswered questions leave empty spaces in our minds, where we fill them with (unrealistic) fantasies and ideations.
The same goes for meeting women with accents. I’ll immediately think that she’s the coolest person ever, and want to be her friend. In this case, I think it’s more about the fact that they’re likely well-traveled and have lived so much life. I love hearing stories from my friend from England; being a “worldly” woman has filled her life with the most eccentric experiences and she’s accumulated an infinite amount of them.
As an avid enjoyer of foreign television and movies, there’s also a certain association with foreign celebrities when it comes to accents. If I meet a man and he has an Australian accent, my mind will instinctively associate him with Jacob Elordi. Obviously this makes the guy ten times hotter. Same with New Zealand and KJ Apa, or England and Robert Pattinson.
I have a theory that male celebrities like Cillian Murphy, Colin Firth, and Barry Keoghan would never be considered the degree of heartthrobs that they are, if they had American accents, no offense to them. I adore Paul Mescal and my type in men hasn’t been the same since I watched him in Normal People, but I can also recognize that without the Irish accent, he’s sort of just a guy.
There’s also something that feels like a correlation between accents and intelligence. David Attenborough is my favorite example of this — I couldn’t imagine an American man narrating my ocean documentaries. Similarly, there was a British girl in one of my courses this past quarter and I was so grateful every time she volunteered to read. Her voice somehow singlehandedly kept me engaged with the content.
To that same point, hearing a man speak with an accent implies that he’s bilingual. Speaking multiple languages generally displays a couple good traits like discipline and experience, and it’s a great conversation starter. Especially from the eyes of an American POV, where everyone is only expected to speak English here. There’s just an inherent impressiveness that comes with their ability to switch languages and adapt to other cultures.
Even though an accent itself might have nothing to do with his intelligence or his courtship, they imply a life that is more exciting, and most importantly, more mysterious than our own. Sometimes it’s right. Sometimes it’s not. Until I find that out, I’ll be giving any accent the benefit of the doubt. Remember that a crush is just a lack of information, so an accent might just be the fastest way to create one.