It appears I need to take a lesson in speech and dialect. Or perhaps geography. Or maybe just a course on exotic men.

A month ago, I met a very good-looking male type, with a ridiculously sexy accent. Even though he told me clearly where he was from, I fixed him in my mind as a native of another continent entirely. Honestly, I plopped him mentally down in the one that sounds the sexiest to me - Australia.

But first, let's go back to the point at which we met. As you may recall from the way-back bipolar posting, I can be just the tiniest bit impulsive. Particularly when I'm happy.

Is it my bipolarism, or is it me? I suspect it's a combination of the two. Regardless, I like this aspect of myself. Except when it gets me into trouble. Which is most of the time.

Anyway, on Memorial Day Weekend, I was happy. That Friday, I had been offered my new job and signed a lease on a new apartment. Saturday, I blazed up to my former mountain home and a barbecue hosted by a longtime friend. We ate, drank and talked until the sunset, and then adjourned to a nearby bar.

By that time, I felt downright celebratory. In other words, very buzzed. So when a good-looking man sat down beside me, I did what any woman would do. Or, at least, what this woman would do. I made a smart-ass comment to him. I wish I could tell you what it was, but I know only that it must have been something divinely entertaining because he smiled and cocked his head at me in interest.

I liked the way he tilted his head. It made me think about kissing him.

The bar was loud and after a few failed attempts to hear one another, he summoned me outside. I happily followed, a gamboling puppy with its tongue hanging out.

We sat on the broad, wooden front steps on this old country bar, and considered one another further. Somewhere in there, he mentioned that he was foreign.

"I'm not hearing it," I said. "Keep talking."

He cocked his head at me again, then laughed and shook it. "Well, what would you like me to say? Let's see ...," he continued.

He could have stopped at the word "say," because I heard it loud and clear on "what." But I let him go on. And on. Because the accent was music, and I was spellbound.

I was, however, not entirely happy about this. I do not like a man to immediately get such a grip on me. Besides which, a guy with a weapon so powerful surely had used it on many hapless women before me. I refused to be just another of his many victims.

At length, he stopped and looked at me again. "Believe me now?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "Damn you."

"Damn me?"

"You and that accent," I said, feigning annoyance.

"And why's that?" he asked, leaning in close to me.

I stared back at him silently, trying to hold back what would have been a huge smile. Instead of telling him what he already knew, it suddenly seemed - in my buzzed condition - a far better idea to take action.

"I'd just like to know," I said, "how it would be."

And I kissed him. I hadn't kissed a man in 14 months. I hadn't kissed a good-looking man in more than two years. I had never kissed an Australian. And as I later discovered, I never did.

"Well," he said afterward. "How was it?" He was smiling, his teeth gleaming white in the dim lighting.

I shrugged. No way in hell did I want him to know it was just as delightful as everything else about him. "It was OK."

He laughed loudly. "You are unbelievable!" He studied me, and I believe he saw clearly through my thin shell.

"I think we just might have something here," he said, the "here" coming out with a charming, soft "ya" sound on the end. The accent - definitely Australian. I knew it. "Do you?"

I nodded, keeping my tone nonchalant. "I think we might."

"But let's just see," he said. "It's my turn."

And this kiss was, I would say, slightly better than OK.

He asked for my phone number. But I thought that's all he would be - a handsome stranger brushing by me on a drunken night.

But the next morning, before my car reached the Front Range flatlands, he called, asking when he could see me again. With the new job, vacation and moving, I told him I'd be hard to catch for the next month. Nevertheless, he convinced me to carve out a weeknight for him two weeks later.

Roger invited me to dinner at his house. Two nights before, he called to give me his apartment number, "A".

"A for Australia," I chirped.

There was a beat of hesitation on the other end of the line. "Yeah," he said.

I arrived sober and, consequently, nervous. I also showed up dressed for summer, forgetting the mountain weather is no slave to any calendar. Just for fun, it sometimes drops down a snowstorm on the 4th of July, which makes viewing fireworks a most unusual challenge. A bit of frost in early June? How quickly I had forgotten that this was more likely than not.

After Roger teased me good and well about my outfit, he fixed me with another look that said he wasn't done.

"Just where do you think it is that I'm from?"

I began to feel embarrassment rushing forward. "Um, obviously not where you're really from?"

"South Africa, not Australia," he said, grinning and watching for my reaction. "Don't you remember?"

In fact, I did not. Not even foggily. I blushed furiously, wondering if I should tell him I'd already nicknamed him "The Aussie" to one of my friends.

"The African" just didn't have the same ring. Wouldn't everyone envision a black, tribal sort with a bone through his nose? Perhaps wearing a loin cloth? (Which, really, didn't seem like a bad idea at all.) But the rest? Frankly, the whole Africa thing just didn't fit his image.

Besides which, the only thing I think of when I hear South Africa is "apartheid." Not exactly endearing. Say "Australia," however, and bouncing through my head go kangaroos and condensation-beaded cans of Fosters.

I would try just to forget this unpleasant "Africa" revelation. He was Joeys and beer, not racism and bloodshed. That was all there was to it.

Despite this shock, we had a very nice evening. Not only could he flirt and kiss and look fabulous in jeans and a T-shirt, he also could cook. Damn him again.

Nevertheless, I don't know if I'll see the African again. He reminds me almost painfully of my last boyfriend, and seems, like him, content with a lifestyle that involves little responsibility. In all that he told me about his history, I could not find evidence of a single serious relationship.

Perhaps I'm on the defensive, for surely, people don't reveal all on a second meeting. Regardless, things between us were left vague, more so on my part than his. The ball's in my court, and I don't know what I want to do with it.

I had lunch with a friend last week and told her about the African and my continental confusion. She was intrigued by my description of him.

"Something about guys with those kinds of accents," she said. "Isn't it funny how they're all good looking?

"I mean, if guys from Alabama all looked like that, would we start to think a Southern accent is attractive? And if he had a Southern drawl, would you have found him attractive at all?"

I think she has a valid point. Fair or not, a Southern twang would have taken a severe toll on the African's aesthetic appeal.

Between the accent and the face, Roger was born to charm; perhaps that explains the apparent lack of serious relationships.

Even if we don't go out again, I might just call him. But I'll do it during the day, when I know he's at work. That way, I can listen to the sweet, seductive music of his voice message - again and again. Or as Roger would say, "a-gain and a-gain."

Damn him.