I had been living in Oxford only a few months when I received a curious flyer in my mailbox.

The title was AS-Bop! Come dressed as a Pikey, it read. Someone was throwing a party. But what on earth is an AS-Bop!? And Pikey? This was unfamiliar terrain.

I sought out one of my British friends for translation. He just shook his head the ignorant American strikes again. AS stands for Antisocial, as in Antisocial Behaviour, he said, as if this was supposed to clarify something.

So you're supposed to dress Chav, you know, trackie bottoms, football jerseys, that sort of thing. Still not ringing any bells? Okay, the closest thing in the US would be what you call white trash? Ahh, now we're getting somewhere.

But, truly, his explanation only served to deepen my confusion. Where I come from, antisocial is a term most often used to describe people who are, well, not social. It's something a teacher might write home in a note to the parents of one of her pupils: Timmy doesn't play well with others, I am concerned about his anti social tendencies.

Which is why it strikes me as absurd when Tony Blair states, ever so gravely, that antisocial behaviour is one of the great challenges facing British society.

Curse those introverts and their troublesome lack of sociability! It is the Government's priority to make England a land where people are extremely outgoing and throw lots of parties.

But in England, I've learned, Antisocial Behaviour with uppercase A-S implies a bit too much sociability: the type who overindulge in the drink and revelry with their mates. I was starting to piece things together.

Still, I was troubled by this idea that Antisocial behaviour was supposedly linked with what we in the States would call white trash, a term basically referring to stereotypical poor whites who live in trailer parks and chew on toothpicks all day. Think Kid Rock, and you have the idea.

But, of course, there are no poor people in England! British people are too refined to be poor.

They sip tea and ride horses and read Shakespeare. This type of behaviour is antithetical to poverty. Right?

You see, growing up, my understanding of England was limited to viewings of BBC shows such as To The Manor Born, and James Herriott, which my Anglophile mother used to watch devotedly. Mostly, in America's eyes, Brits are associated with all that is genteel.

A lot of this has to do with the accent. Americans hear someone speak with a British accent and automatically assume he or she is smarter and classier than we are.

It doesn't matter what sort of accent it is. Brit friends of mine can't believe I'm unable to distinguish between a Northern accent, a Liverpool accent, and a London accent.

They all sound charming. And intimidating.

In the end, I went to this party this antisocial social event but I didn't dress like a Pikey.

I decided to go as a posh, snooty Oxford student, something I can understand enough to make fun of.