Bronwyn Cosgrove: The truth about English men and dating Canadians

Are English men lousy at courtship and bad in bed? They certainly are according to Leah McLaren, a blonde Canadian journalist whose recent article in The Spectator, "What's wrong with you guys", denigrating the romantic ways of the modern English male, has since been circulated in the qualities and the tabloids.

From my standpoint – I'm also a blonde Canadian journalist – she's wrong. Let's start with my current boyfriend, "Ludlow" (that's his middle name). On Sunday morning, as I was reading an abridged version of McLaren's piece in the Telegraph, Ludlow was downstairs in the kitchen fixing breakfast. He had jumped out of bed, asked me what paper I preferred to read, dashed to the shop, picked it up and then made a fantastic pot of coffee which he swiftly delivered to me in a china cup. After breakfast we went for a stroll and spent the day together relaxing in the park.

Tall, dark, handsome, exceedingly bright, Ludlow is a very special man. He's also English. He sometimes cringes when I come on all North American – get snappy and complain about terrible English service in restaurants. He rolls his eyes when I get edgy that taxi drivers still take me the tourist route in London (I've lived here for 10 years), but he's really great. And we seem to have no problem communicating, despite our cultural differences.

Here lies Leah McLaren's main problem. She's pitched up in London, shacked up with an American girlfriend and seems to expect that a Sex and the City lifestyle – complete with a dishy British version of Mr Big – should quickly unfold. She expects that English men speak the same language as she does and that they should adhere to Canadian and American courtship rituals.

They don't. The English that North Americans speak and the English the Brits enunciate are, in fact, totally different languages. Take one of my first experiences with an English man. "James" called me up and asked me out on a date. I said, "Sure." He didn't call me back for another week. When he did, I asked him what happened. He told me that he didn't understand what "sure" meant. I explained that "sure" meant "yes!"

"'Sure' doesn't mean 'yes' to me," he replied. Point taken. A relationship soon followed and, when it ended a year later, and another English man appeared and asked me out, I said "Yes" instead of "Sure", so that he clearly got the message.

Another word that Brits and North Americans do not share in their lexicon is the word "date". North American males date. They wine and dine women. And most will reveal all up front – if they want a relationship or if they want to play the field (see other women including you). Then they usually lunge at you whether you like it or not.

English men don't date. They may ask you "out", but one should never assume that because an English man asks you "out" that he wants to form a relationship. It doesn't take Einstein to realise this. Perhaps Leah should spend a quiet night in and watch a James Bond film.

Leah complains that English men communicate by texting her instead of calling to chat (then don't give them your mobile number – kindly ask them to call you at home and they probably will), and she seems to be hitting on only one type of man – the Old Etonian. Take it from me love, you are barking up the wrong tree. Who knows what happens among the "brothers" on campus in Windsor, but safe to say, after dating a string myself, that they are not the best advertisement for British manhood. They're not exactly bad at courtship (most come equipped with a lot of fun trappings – the swank Chelsea penthouse, the country pile, a knack for mixing the perfect V&T) – but they are truly lousy lovers.

I remember being whisked off to New York by my fourth and final Old Etonian boyfriend, and after two nights of complete boredom in our sprawling suite at the Waldorf, I had to ask him if any romance at all would factor into our trip. It didn't, and we soon parted.

Leah is also playing the dating game by The Rules – the late Nineties relationship handbook that flew to the top of the US bestseller lists and reaped results for countless New York women. But The Rules don't work in Noughties London. She expects men to do what The Rules dictate: all of the work – make all of the phone calls, pick up all of the cheques, send flowers, while women should play hard to get – resist calling back, let him pay for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Such an approach might work in Canada, where men are extremely traditional – but in London, dinner may be on him, but he's probably not going to spring for breakfast and lunch (although he might, like Ludlow, whip up something scrummy from his Le Caprice cookbook).

London, like New York, is a huge metropolis where a lot of men playing the dating game suffer from the Big City Syndrome. Until you are in – that is over his threshold, not just the passenger seat of his Jaguar – you are just another number. If you don't show that you are keen or you care, they'll play it cool and probably take a hike in their John Lobb loafers, leaving you behind in the urban smog.

The writer is the features editor of Vogue