Here’s how to pull a Meghan Markle and find your own British boyfriend

For reasons unbeknownst to me, almost every other American woman I know is totally transfixed with the idea of dating a Guy With An Accent. And among all the marbles-in-their-mouth accented men, the type that seems to be the most popular is the English accent.

For me, my train of thought when faced with an English accent is this:

1. British Man

2. Benedict Squigglysmatch

3. This potato

4. Run

But some of you are very determined to Meghan Markle and snap up a pip-pip-cherrio kind of dude, so I set out to figure out how exactly an American Woman can snag a British Dude. Luckily, most of babe's parent company's employees are British so by "set out to figure out how", I mean I went up to all of them and asked "how?" Here's what they said:

Know where to find them

According to every British dude I know, virtually every city in America is teeming with British ex-pats if you know where to look — it's like when you turn over a rock and find a zillion squirming bugs underneath!

So if you're looking for an oh-so-casual run-in, there are two key places to go: Sports bars at 10 a.m. on Saturday are playing premier league games (that's soccer, y'all) so show up if you want a soccer scarf-wearing dude to buy you some ungodly stout beer. If they can tear themselves away from the screen, that is. If you arrive at the bar at 10 a.m. and they're not showing the game (match?) then you'll just look like an alcoholic, but whatever.

I'm also told that a lot of bars that bill themselves as pubs are actually legitimate British pubs, especially if they've got posters for shit like rugby or whatever in the windows. If you're sober, I'm sorry but I don't think a British dude is right for you.

Play up what they like about American girls

Again, this is all based on my batch of buddies at the office, but it was agreed upon across the board that British guys like how direct and assertive American women are. One guy told me, "All British people — men and women — are basically Hugh Grant. Self-assurance and straight-forwardness are refreshing."

This is not to make you like, run up to a buck-toothed dude and just grab his dick but rather than hedging around getting his number, just go for it.

Don't be a stereotype, though

As much as I love doing this to my friends and coworkers, British people don't especially liiiiike being reduced to caricatures. Save ball-busting for people you're not trying to fuck. Also, when I asked for some tips on total turnoffs, the dudes were practically foaming at the mouth to tell me to tell you guys what not to do.

So here it is: Don't mimic their accent (though you definitely will, especially when drunk — trust me), don't act like Europe is all one place and you totally get what's it's like to be British because you once studied abroad for a month is Barthhhelona.

One guy says you shouldn't overdo it on the twee British shit like Sherlock and Harry Potter, but…he also thinks the UK let America win the Revolutionary War, so. Grain of salt, friends.