#221. Convincing youth group girls to make out with you.
A cashier at a Staples office supply store once gave me some parenting advice when I was checking out. When he found out I was having a girl, he said the following:
When you have a boy, you have to worry about one boy on the planet. When you have a girl, you have to worry about every boy on the planet.
That’s an odd thing for the guy selling you uniball micro pens to tell you, I seem to be a magnet for that kind of thing. But he’s right in some ways. Unless modesty becomes a trend or a really famous Amish girl becomes someone that teenagers learn to emulate, I’m stuck. It’s not going to be easy to raise girls. I get that. I probably deserve that for how stupid I was to the opposite sex when I was young.
Here’s the thing though, maybe I can take lessons from my days of foolishness. Maybe I can equip my daughters with the kind of wisdom that can only come from a lifetime of bumps and bruises.
It’s doubtful I’ll ever write a book called “The girl’s guide to jerks” but I could definitely at least share three lessons I plan to pass on to my daughters. I’ve written about these before, but I think they only get more valid as time goes on. The first two are the kind of things Christian guys are really good at or bad at depending on your perspective. The third one is kind of a bonus idea that non Christians and Christians alike are guilty of.
Maybe you’re still in college or on the dating scene and can use this. Chances are these will seem really obvious, but if you already know them, I promise you’re miles ahead of some of the girls that I ran into while in college.
1. Depth Perception
A counselor told this idea to a friend of mine and I think it’s solid. Everyone has a handful of things they don’t want to share with strangers. Joys or pains that feel too big to introduce in a casual conversation. Maybe you didn’t get into the college you wanted to or you once got fired from a job. Could be that you still suck your thumb, it can be anything really. What happens though is that some guys have a handful of things they’ve grown comfortable with over the years. You might have a hard time talking about a family member that died but they don’t. In fact, they’re perfectly fine with it. So what they do is tell you all about it. And you think, “wow, this guy just shared something really personal. I should too.” You open up and make yourself really vulnerable because you think he just did. But he didn’t. He’s creating a depth perception issue. He’s appearing deeper and more honest than he really is in an attempt to get you to open up.
2. Reverse Psychology
Again, super obvious, but you’d still be surprised how often people get trapped by this. In this scenario the guy simply uses reverse psychology to push the girl into doing something she wouldn’t normally do. A guy will say, “You’re such a goody too shoes. It’s so different to be around someone Puritanical.” Rarely does someone want to claim that title. And the guy continues, “You’re not wild. You don’t do crazy things. That’s what I like about you.” Again, this kind of conversation begins to wear on the girl and she feels like she has something to prove. It becomes a challenge and before long, she finds herself saying “I’m not such a goody too shoes, you just don’t know me. I do crazy things!” And then they make out.
3. I’m the opposite.
This is for the girls that have a boyfriend/husband. Anytime you express even the smallest bit of dissatisfaction about your boyfriend to another guy, please expect them to reverse the statement. If you say that your boyfriend doesn’t love the color blue and you wish he did, that guy you’re talking to is going to say, “I love blue. I live for blue. I spoke with a doctor about getting my skin turned blue surgically.” If you’re boyfriend hates the movie “Pride and Prejudice,” get ready to meet the world’s biggest Pride and Prejudice fan at work. Not cool, but true.
I need to throw out a few disclaimers for this piece:
1. This isn’t just something guys do. Girls do it too.
2. Girls are smart, this is not about that, it’s about guys being manipulative.
3. There are lots of honest guys out there. This is about jerks.
4. These are really simple. If you already know them, that’s great.
5. I’m sorry that I did anything like this to girls. I was a jerk.
I hope that if a guy ever tells one of my daughters that she’s a prude she ends up laughing her way out of the car. Just looking back as she leaves and muttering between big guffaws, “He actually tried the reverse on me. Me, the reverse. Ha!”
