This post has been incubating in my brain for years. And after a good conversation a few Sundays ago with the current EQP in our ward (who wants to encourage the elders in the ward to date more) this post is finally ready to be born.
In the past 10 years I have had A LOT of roommates (like, over 50 actual house mates) and an even greater number of honorary roommates. Living with a lot of girls can be drama. It seems like someone is always having relationship drama. Girls talk a lot. We talk a lot about our guy problems. We get angry together and eat Ben and Jerry's and talk about how guys are such jerks. I didn't think much about it until recent years when I realized that this is every unmarried girl's go-to response. Guys. Are. Jerks. I felt really comfortable using those words to console a heartbroken friend until I heard what guys say to respond to their unsuccessful relationships, "man, she was crazy".
So what is it? Are guys jerks or are girls crazy? Or both? Guys CAN be jerks. Girls CAN be crazy. Usually though, we label the opposite gender with these terms because they don't think with the same logic that we do. Guys become jerks when they don't clearly communicate their intentions. Girls will interpret a guy's behavior however they want and see only what they want to see because the guy is not clearly explaining what is going on. Honestly though, a lot of guys have no clue what they're doing or what they want and don't realize that their actions are often saying to a girl, "I'm interested" even when they're not. Girls become crazy when their feelings get hurt and rather than communicating that with words sometimes she communicates it with irrational behavior assuming that they guy will pick up on these clues and rectify the situation. When the guys don't realize what is going on the girl gets even more upset and acts even more irrationally. In her mind, she has been led on and she feels like a fool for trying to make sense of a guy's actions since he wouldn't explain what it all meant (or didn't mean) in the first place.
But the name calling has to stop. By the time you're in your mid-to-late 20's you should have learned how to communicate expectations and frustrations with the opposite sex, and with anyone for that matter. We've got to stop being jerks and crazies. The problem is that we don't date enough to actually gain the proper communication skills and empathy. And, when we do date (or are even just in the friend zone), we are not taking risks and actually addressing expectations and frustrations.
So here are some of the categories (pieces of advice from girls to guys) I will be addressing in subsequent posts:
-Be a focused dater--remember the purposes of dating.
-Dating won't be as scary for you when you know what you want.
-You complain girls are all the same but keep dating the same kind of girls.
-Consider girls that you haven't considered before..be open.
-We know it's just a date, not a marriage proprosal.
-Stop hanging out with us and being our best friends.
-How we want men to treat us: It's really not that hard to make us fall in love with you.
-How we show you we're interested.
-Be honest (even painfully so) about your intentions and feelings the minute you realize we're not on the same page.
-Remember, we get rejected too. It's a two-way street.
Stay tuned for more...
CLICK HERE FOR PART 2
CLICK HERE FOR PART 3
1 comment:
Oooh. I hope a lot of single people read this. :) I will say it gets interesting being a married person and watching single people date each other. Things that seem so obvious to us aren't so obvious to the people involved. Even though I'm married, I'm excited to read your following posts!
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