Dating Advice for Men and Women

I'm going to take a slight risk with this post.  Recently, this blog about dating advice for men has been floating around Facebook.  And, men, read it.  Women, go ahead and read it too.  It is good dating advice for men.  But I want to offer a counterpoint to women, because, quite frankly, we don't always do things better than men do. So, with further ado,

Five Notes on Dating for the Ladies

1) Be clear.

If men need to be intentional, so do women. We often can get away with playing games, with blowing hot and cold, with sending mixed signals and misleading hints.  If we don't want guys equivocating, playing that pseudo-dating game, or defaulting into relationships, rather than straight-up asking us out, we've got to start straight-up answering.  Be honest with the men in your life, especially when they are being honest and vulnerable with you.

Part of the ability to be clear and honest comes from a deep self-knowledge.  How can you let someone else know what you want from a relationship, what you need in life, where you see yourself going through the year, unless you know can answer these questions?  How can you tell if someone shares your values and priorities, unless you can identify them for yourself?  The men I have seen be most hurt by women are wounded by women who don't know their own desires well enough.  For example, more than one man in my life has been told by a woman, "I don't want to date; I want to court/be courted" -- yet she could not tell him what she mean by "courtship."

We don't need to have it all figured out -- we none of us have it all figured out -- but we need enough to recognize ourselves in an internal mirror and communicate some of that image, so to speak.

2) Be rational.

That being said... be honest, but don't overdo the analysis.  I have two subpoints under this point 2).

a) Don't overtalk/overdiscuss it.  Yes, it is good to know where your relationship stands.  Sometimes this will require a DTR, depending on how the relationship started/progressed. But you don't need a DTR every day or every week, or even every month.  Let things grow and progress; let the relationship take its course.  You may need to reevaluate after a few months if it is not clear to you how things are progressing.  That's okay -- and it's okay to bring it up if you have a strong reason to think something has changed.  It just should not be an every single day discussion.

b) Don't overanalyze.  Some of the best advice on communication between the genders is simple arithmetic.  Men, when a lady speaks, take what you think she means, and multiply it by 3.  Ladies, when a man speaks, take what you think he means and divide it by 3.  Most things he says/does are not veiled hints, secret messages, or hidden meanings.  When he says he doesn't want to hang out tonight because his football team is playing and he wants to watch it with the boys, that does not mean he doesn't like you.  It doesn't mean he doesn't want to date you.  It doesn't even mean he's tired of you.  It simply means that he wants some beer and wings and to watch the Patriots play.  If your mind is going crazy over-analyzing things, you are going to have a hard time holding yourself to (2)(a).

3) Let him lead. 

If you have read anything on this blog (including that little bio of me on the side), you will have figured out that I am a self-professed feminist and a strong Polish woman.  That should tell you two things about number (3).  First, that I have a hard time writing it for fear of how some people may interpret it.  Second, that I don't mean look down and be a doormat.  I don't mean he has to make all the decisions or run your life.  In fact, stay away from those models!  Instead, find where and how he is a leader and affirm him in those areas.  Figure out intentionally how to incorporate these things into your relationship.

As a corollary: let him do those little chivalrous things that melt female hearts, but don't demand them!  This is a tricky balance to reach.  I had a couple of male friends who taught me something about the balance when I was too far on the other side.  They did things like run in front of me to open doors and flat-out refuse to go through lines before me.  Eventually, I learned to accept these gestures with grace, rather than rolled eyes. I also got to witness how this small, token affirmation of their masculinity helped them develop it in other ways.

On the other hand, many men are not taught to do these things, or are taught by the women in their lives NOT to do these things.  So judge a man by a greater picture of his heart than whether he takes the outside of the sidewalk.

4) Guard his eyes.

Okay, so guys were told to help guard our hearts.  Ladies, we have got to guard their eyes.  I tend to hate soapboxes on modesty and I am not going to tell you what to wear or how many inches below your neck your neckline should sit.  As I walk through the mall with my fiance, I find myself jokingly covering his eyes at times -- but only half-jokingly.  Because the fact is, I don't want him to see those parts of other ladies!  And as a general rule of thumb, the parts of other ladies that I don't want him to see are the parts of me he should not be seeing till we are married.  If I want him to entertain only pure thoughts about me, I need to be presenting myself in such a way that I encourage only pure thoughts.  It's not about blaming women for men's thoughts -- it's about love.  If I love him, I want to make it as easy as possible for him to keep his mind full of pure thoughts.

5) Girls struggle with lust too.

This is a direct answer to number 5 for men, on physical touch.

One day, I stumbled across a couple articles (I'm not sure that these were the ones, but they are good ones I found in retrospect) that focused on the fact that women struggle with physical desire. I was shocked at how freeing I found this point.  When we believe that we should not be having a particular struggle, there are two consequences: 1) we tend to deny that we are having that struggle, which leads us unable to combat it; and 2) we tend to think we are particularly alone and particularly awful for having that struggle. We are too often led to believe that lust is a struggle unique to men, that only men desire more physically than is allowable before marriage.  This is just not true.  We were born with the same original sin and the same concupiscent desires as men.  So ladies, read point number 5 for the men, and apply it to your own lives.  And maybe click the links in the first sentence.

Fun Fact of the Day

Fun fact of the day: you can set Word's grammar check options to identify not only passive voice, but also cliches and gender-specific words.

I have not yet used this function, so I cannot tell you how it works.  However, I am fascinated by its existence. 

Day-Maker #83

Overheard in the office: "No, we do not have the Pope's cell phone number."

Divorce and the Pill

Here's an interesting take on the Pill from a surprising source.  Scientific American seems to be claiming that the Pill leads to higher divorce rates.  Here's the two ways that happens, according to this article:

1) The Pill leads women to be attracted to men with major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes that are more similar, rather than less similar to their own.  Couples with similar MHC genes report less sexual satisfaction.  Less sexual satisfaction could contribute to divorce.

2) The Pill leads women to be attracted to men with major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes that are more similar, rather than less similar to their own. When a couple decides to have a baby, the woman goes off the Pill and finds herself less attracted to her husband, while simultaneously more attracted to other men.  This change in attraction could lead to divorce.

Let me put in a few disclaimers and explanatory notes here:

*Just because widespread use of the Pill might lead to a higher divorce rate, it does not necessarily follow that an individual woman should not use the Pill for contraceptive purposes.

*I think that (i.e. women should not use the Pill for contraceptive purposes) for other reasons.

*If there is a correlation between use of the Pill and divorce, it should be enough for most women to think twice about the decision to use hormonal contraception.  I don't want to be less attracted to my husband at the exact moment we want to have children.

*The changes in attraction from the use of hormonal contraception might be a social scientific explanation of divorce rates, but they are not an excuse for any individual divorce.  It might be harder to make a marriage work in these circumstances, but (barring abusive situations) divorce should simply not be an option.

The thing that interests me most about this article is that it comes from a source without a Christian bias. The point isn't to convince women not to use hormonal contraceptives, but to draw attention to an interesting scientific fact.  And whatever we disagree on, I think most people of good will agree that women should have all the facts before making decisions about the drugs we use.

Breaking News: Syria

Breaking News: Majority of Americans Approve of Sending Congress to Syria.  Thanks to The Onion for covering this story.

It amused me so much I had to share, though there is nothing amusing about the situation in Syria.  I've been following it via NPR.  At the time of the chemical weapons attack, they talked with a doctor at a hospital in Syria, who described the thousands of patients coming in.  I was so horrified I nearly changed stations, but I don't want to be that person who turns a blind eye to the sufferings of others.

Over the next two days, I heard Kerry's and Obama's comments from NPR and tried to form an opinion on what we as the US should do.  I reached the impasse that I always do when pondering foreign policy.  On the one hand, I hate war and know the US does not have a good history of intervening in other nations' civil wars.  On the other hand, listen to descriptions of the people hit by the sarin gas.  By our common humanity, each person holds a certain responsibility for every other person on the planet.  And if we don't do anything, who will?

NPR reassured me that these feelings are normal and gendered.  More men than women support US military action in Syria -- not because women are more likely to oppose it, but because they are more likely to be undecided.

We Need Feminism Because....

Lately, I've been antsy to start running again -- I stopped in June due to health issues and now that they are resolved, I am preparing to get back to it.  So it's not surprising that as I wander through the neighborhood that will be mine in November, I sometimes think about where I will run.

I haven't just been thinking about it -- I've also talked to my fiance, who lives there now, about running routes in his neighborhood.  The conversation went something like this:

"The running path down by the river -- is it safe?"
"I think your greatest danger is being hit by a bike." [Brief excursus about runners being hit by cyclists.] "I like running towards town better."
"Yeah, but I don't like running along main roads."
"There's a bridge over the highway so you won't get hit.  There are some roads back here too that might be good.  There's a big hill and lots of stairs that lead you to a park."
"That doesn't look like it'd be long enough.  I'll probably go by the path."
"I don't like it in the winter.  It's not very well lit."
[Moment of revelation for both of us: we are talking about different dangers.]
"Of course, I don't have the same concerns as a lady runner..."

I need feminism because my concerns when choosing a running path should not be dictated by my gender.  That conversation brought to mind this collection of students explaining why they need feminism.