Did we really need Brazilian women to confirm this?

SO slow. American men are so slow.

Late last year, nine months after she left Brazil, Camila Franca met a dark-haired, blue-eyed American hockey player at a party. They sat on the couch and talked for hours about nightclubs, her family, her life back home.

He did not touch her. He certainly did not kiss her. Something must be wrong, she thought.

Excusing herself, Ms. Franca, a 20-year-old with long brown hair and a hair-trigger laugh, sought advice from a more savvy Brazilian friend. The friend's explanation? Nothing was wrong; he was just being an American.

Forget getting a job, learning English, finding an apartment. The true challenge for the young, single and foreign-born who arrive in New York is cracking the code of the dating scene.

For Brazilian women, who come from a place where public displays of affection are a way of life and men rarely lack for amorous gusto, the task is particularly confounding. Ask Brazilian women what they think about American men, and most respond precisely the same way: with gales of laughter. Then they tell disturbingly similar tales of men who fear making advances lest they be accused of date rape and who coldly calculate how many days they need to wait between meeting a woman and asking her to dinner.

This is from an article in yesterday's New York Times, written by Seth Kugel, who I met once several years ago. He freelances for the Times, and often covers the crosscultural beat (especially of the Latino variety). Enjoy the remainder of the article here (registration required) and feel free to discuss this topic further in the comments.