I have given up on American men. Well, perhaps not permanently. I am living in Europe, after all, and during my first year at Oxford, I've ended up only going out with males from the USA. It has made me aware of the need to branch out. For I cannot say that any of these romantic interactions was particularly positive.

The common denominator among them all - the pure, infantile hysteria that characterised these men's reaction to the whiff of any sort of commitment.

As a social-scientist-in- training, I am drawn to the correlation here. Does being American and male in some essential way make one commitment-phobic? Are American men naturally incapable of being in tune with the needs and emotions of women?

It certainly seems that way, based on my experience, but far be it from me to draw any sort of conclusion without some rigorous empirical testing.

Thus, I have decided to embark on a social experiment - I must date European men so as to develop a sample for comparison. Granted, this will take a few concessions on my part. I am going to have to get over my phobia of overly-coiffed males and accept that hair gel is part of the Euro man's repertoire.

And unless I limit myself to rugby players, I will need to embrace the - how shall I put this nicely - "slimmer" build that seems to characterize males of this continent. I don't think this will be much of a sacrifice. I'm not much for bulky neck muscles anyway, and I find American men's considerable infatuation with sculpting their bodies via weight regimes and protein shakes to be incredibly tiresome.

The European penchant for tight pants, however, might present a more substantial mental hurdle...

To prepare for the Euro dating scene, I consulted my sister, who is engaged to a Frenchman.

Little sis reported that the men she encountered in France were much more traditional in their approach to romance.

"I was told when I first got to France that if you kiss someone, even drunkenly at a bar, it means that you are his girlfriend," she said.

So snogging someone at a bar means you are automatically in a relationship, huh? This strikes me as a little extreme. But perhaps British men represent a more moderate relationship approach - somewhere between the Romeo complex of their Continental counterparts and "the sight of an engagement ring makes me want to faint" pole to which American men cling.

This is more my speed - I'm certainly not looking for marriage-in-a-box, but nor do I have the patience to put up with "maybe in 10 years, I will be able to express to you my feelings".

My American male friends are, not surprisingly, sceptical at the premise of my investigation.

"European men aren't more romantic or committed than American men, they're just better at making nave American girls think they are," I've been warned.

This is possibly true, but I prefer to cling to unwarranted idealism and see how events unfold.

Let the experiment begin!